Another Generic Akuroku
by Axie Flamesilocks
Summary: Let's face it. They're everywhere. But how do the characters feel when they're overworked? Faced with some of the most unsquelchable Cliches in yaoi history, Axel and Roxas struggle to keep their characters intact.
1. We're kissing without kissing

Roxas left school like a good, normal kid and waved to his normal friends and headed right down the normal street trying really hard not to think about how damned _normal_ it all was. He already knew that it was going to get messed up, but he wasn't going to _act_ like he knew or he'd defeat the purpose entirely. Still, he wasn't really sure if he was up for it when he spotted the flaming red spikes and midnight black arm draped over the side of the bench. According to the plot, if he was reading the narrative right, he was supposed to walk right past and Axel would pick up the slack.

"Yo."

Like clockwork.

Roxas turned, his hands jammed in his pockets, but kept walking backwards. "What?"

Axel looked tired, and the cigarette between his lips wasn't lit, but he didn't seem to notice. "You're cute," he said simply. God, Axel could be horrible at characterization when he got like this.

"Thanks," Roxas said with a nod, and turned back around to keep walking. If Axel was going to be pathetic, he certainly wasn't going to make things easy.

"Get the fuck over here."

Dropping character already, and Roxas was too vexed to keep it up. "Make me."

Axel was silent for a minute. For just a minute, Roxas thought he might get away this time. "Where're you headed?"

"Home."

"Where's that?"

Roxas stopped dead. _Fuck._ The plot hadn't prepared a home yet, or parents, or _food_, which was really what he was after about right now. He looked around for a while, at a loss, and then turned back to the bench with a defeated sigh. Axel crowed with victory, clapping his hands once above his head and then adjusting his cigarette.

The redhead was wearing a pretty nondescript leather jacket and some other silver doodads that were really just there to look cool, and Roxas was feeling particularly feminine in the pink shirt and girls' jeans. He plopped down onto the bench and felt Axel rest his arm across the back, but he didn't bother to remove the slightly frilly blue backpack as he crushed it against the wood. He probably wouldn't need whatever was in there anyway anytime soon, unless there was some lube in the bottom pouch.

"So where're you from, cutie?" Axel asked.

"You forgot the introductions."

"Answer the damn question."

"Here," Roxas said firmly, pointing at the ground. "Is where I'm from. And that should probably be obvious."

"Where _is_ here?"

The two of them kind of looked around at the mundane setting for a while. There was a park, people walking around, a couple of cars passing by, picnic tables, a lake in the distance… "The fuck are we?" Axel asked, starting to chuckle a little.

"I dunno," Roxas said, unable to hide the grin that spread across his face as Axel kept laughing, struck by the utter nonsense of it all. Where _were_ they? The plot hadn't even told them that much, probably because it wouldn't even matter throughout the course of the story. "Japan?"

"Doubt it."

"The U.S., then."

"Maybe."

"Destiny Islands?"

"Nope," Axel said, gesturing to the city in the distance. "Oh, well. Doesn't matter." He dropped his head back against the bench and closed his eyes.

There was another long silence. Roxas figured they were on a time limit—any minute now the lust would kick in and they'd run to the nearest hotel and get on with it already, or else maybe they'd draw it out a little and Axel would follow him home like a stalker. At least then he'd _have_ a home, he thought sourly. But parents were probably too much to hope for. No, he knew this type of fic—there wouldn't be any other major characters, only bit parts and incidental OCs. He almost groaned aloud to think of _another_ slew of chapters with only Axel for company, and just what in the hell was his motivation this time? He couldn't remember, and the plot wasn't dropping any hints.

"This cigarette sucks."

"It's not lit."

Axel sat up and plucked it from his lips to frown at it in astonishment. "Huh." Shrugging, he fumbled in his pocket for a lighter, and came up with a black one emblazoned with a silver chakram. He flipped open the top.

_Chink_

_Chink_

_Chink chink chink chink chink chink chink chink_

Blue eyes narrowed. "Would you stop that?"

"Broken," Axel garbled through the cigarette, shooting the lighter a death glare. He tossed it behind him and let a flame flicker to life above his index finger.

"Not supposed to do that."

"Up yours."

"Yeah, I imagine that's the idea," Roxas pointed out sharply. After all, it was probably about time they started focusing on the plot again. Or. Well. What plot there was.

Axel shot him a grimace and pried the now glowing cigarette from his lips. "I'm topping?"

"Yeah."

"I _always_ top. Sick of it."

"Tough."

The redhead grumbled something inappropriate and jammed the cigarette back in his mouth. "Paragraphs are fucking short," he said after a minute. "Can't you think some more or something?"

"So now you're caring about the narrative?"

"I'm caring about what the goddam author is gonna do to me when the goddam readers don't review this piece of crap because we're screwing with the plot." Axel glared at a nearby baby carriage. "Probably gonna make something horrible happen."

"Yeah, because you're really in a lot of danger right now."

Axel rolled his eyes. "Roxas, I've got a death rate like you wouldn't believe."

Roxas crossed his arms and glared at him. "I _know_ that, but I've had a lot worse happen to me than just getting killed."

"Such as?"

"Eaten."

"Fine, b—"

"_Alive_."

That one sort of threw Axel for a minute. "You were?" he asked incredulously after a long, surprised silence.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"The hell was I?"

"_I don't want to fucking talk about it_."

The redhead shrugged, tapping the cigarette to get rid of the burnt tip. "Dipped in acid."

"Hit by a falling piano."

"Stabbed with a Keyblade."

"Struck by a vehicle."

"Smothered with superglue."

"Raped until dead."

"Blew myself up."

"You _always_ do that."

Axel shrugged. "Still counts."

Blue eyes rolled. "Crushed in a cement mixer."

"Killed by tacos."

That time the blond blinked and glared over at his best friend.

"I swear to god. _Tacos_."

"Poisoned?"

"I don't want to fucking talk about it."

Roxas fell silent, more than a little annoyed that they'd run out of things to talk about again. It passed the time while they waited for the lust to kick in, and it just wasn't doing that. The plot wasn't going to make this hard, was it?

He sighed and glanced over at Axel. "Wanna copulate?"

The redhead considered that. "Sure," he said finally with a one-armed shrug, and chucked the cigarette towards the baby carriage. "Jackpot!" he whooped when it landed just inside and an infant's wail split the peaceful silence of the park.

"You're topping," Roxas reminded him, shrugging out of his backpack.

"No, I'm not."

"The plot says you have to do it, so _do it_."

This time Axel was the one to glare at Roxas. "I topped the last thirty times and your prostate's as raw as _sushi_. Mine needs attention anyway, so stop being a dick and top already."

_Fine._ Roxas complied, shoving Axel harshly to the bench and smirking a bit when the redhead hissed in pain. A little kink never hurt when they had to do this so many times. "Lube," he said shortly, already relieving Axel of his jacket and going for his pants.

Axel shot him an exasperated look. "Rox, I couldn't hold in a fart if my _life_ depended on it. Lube ain't an issue."

Roxas only grunted vaguely in agreement, relieved. They were both so open now that lube made the friction almost nonexistent. So he pulled up his shirt over his head and leaned in to kiss Axel, nipping at that lower lip and forcing his tongue past Axel's teeth. But it wasn't long before he pulled up, looking frustrated. "Why're you yielding?" he demanded.

"I'm yielding?" Axel asked distractedly. That's when Roxas realized he wasn't focusing at all, which was _perfect_.

"Don't fucking yield," the blond ordered, and dove back down again. He broke the kiss to rip Axel's shirt up over the man's head and…dammit, Axel was being totally submissive right then and that did _not_ appeal to Roxas. He tried to ignore it, tried to anger Axel into reciprocating by chewing at his mouth and kissing hard enough to bruise. But Axel might as well have been a heartless Kairi for all the responding he did. Roxas finally tore away, glaring down at him. "You're not making the noises."

Axel grimaced again. "Do I _have_ to make the noises?"

"Yeah, you do, or I can't get it up," Roxas told him bluntly. "What's with you? You're like a freakin' blow-up doll today."

Axel managed a half-hearted "uhn."

"You're goddam impossible," Roxas muttered, going for Axel's lips again. Maybe if he drew some blood the redhead would finally pay attention.

But Axel suddenly shoved him off, and Roxas felt the world turn over and slam into his back. He blinked at Axel from the ground, dazed. "What was that for?"

"I dunno." Axel curled up on the bench as Roxas rose, pillowing his head on his arm. "I…just…" He sighed. "Bored of this, you know?"

Roxas glared at the sky and devotedly wished that the lust would just kick in already and they'd just fuck and stop having to think about it all, stop having to wish that maybe something a little different would finally happen. "Aren't you gonna do anything?" he demanded of the air.

There was a long silence.

"She's not listening to you," Axel pointed out rather unnecessarily, flicking a thread off his arm.

"How do you know it's a she?"

"Trust me."

Roxas growled at that and went over to pick up that stupid pink shirt again. "Well," he said, hesitating, "as long as she's not paying attention…" He turned it in his hands and it became a familiar black shirt, which he unzipped and pulled on.

"Now you're the one breaking the rules," Axel said, grinning up at him. Roxas looked over at the redhead with his arm curled under his head and his other hand resting on his bare stomach, green eyes glinting playfully, and for just an instant was reminded of why he loved this man in the first place. But then he shifted and it was gone, and it was just stupid Axel again—stupid Axel he had to fuck over and over no matter how old it got.

"I don't care. She can jam scissors up my nose later." It wasn't like it hadn't happened before. Besides, Roxas thought as he pulled his rings and wristband out of the backpack and transformed it into his vest, they had to do _something_ if the author was slacking off.

"She'll probably be punishing _me_ for it," Axel said with a sigh, but he started changing his clothes into the Organization standard uniform anyhow. "If I remember right, this is one of the chicks who likes to hurt me."

"I don't keep track," Roxas said, shrugging on the vest and switching out his pants and shoes. "Not when it's just about the sex, ultimately."

"Oh no?" Axel raised an interested eyebrow. "What about that one…"

Roxas's lips twitched. "Okay, yeah. There was that."

"And the other one…"

The blond's eyes closed dreamily. "Oh hell yes."

"Who topped in that?"

"Dude, I don't even remember."

Axel, though, seemed pretty intent. "I think we _both_ did…oh yeah, that's right! Because you…" He shook his head, grinning. "We gotta get her _again_ sometime."

Roxas, though, was no longer paying attention. "Chapter's gonna end," he said instead, glancing around. It was probably for the best—putting the smut in the first chapter was a quick way to piss the yaoi-haters off. "And nothing happened. It's gonna sink like a stone."

"Likely." But Axel looked speculative as he rose, straightening his leather cloak. "Maybe she's just not getting involved," he said, glancing around as if he expected to see the author make an appearance. "Have you been hearing the keys?"

Roxas was so used to it that he'd almost tuned out the click of keys, but now that he thought about it, it seemed deadly silent here. "No," he said finally, frowning. "Maybe I just can't hear it anymore…?"

"Or maybe she's given us the reins!" Axel suddenly looked excited. "What if she's done that? What if we could do this on _our own_?"

Roxas hesitated. In most cases, everything was set in stone, but from time to time they hit places where they could pretty much do what they wanted within a set of guidelines. He'd never experienced total control of the story… "Are we even being recorded?" he asked, glancing around again. "Maybe she's not even working this one." Stories went on hiatus all the time, it wouldn't surprise him.

"Yeah, dude, no—check the text," Axel told him, pointing. "Roxas left school like a nor—like a good, normal kid—"

"All right, I get it." Roxas wrinkled his nose. "But this doesn't make any sense…"

"Bet it's a satire," Axel said with a nod. Then he noticed the author's note. "Look at that. I fucking called it," he said, grinning.

* * *

Author's Note: This is something of a satire, in case that wasn't abundantly clear, of the unbearably cliché story wherein Roxas's normal life gets interrupted by Axel for the sole purpose of having unnaturally perfect sex. I am not criticizing the GOOD stories in which this happens, only the ones where both characters have maybe three character traits between them and nothing NEW or DIFFERENT gets contributed (I would classify these stories as BAD but the nice person who sometimes possesses my body will refer to them as UNDERDEVELOPED).

KARICKTERIZAYSHUN ES GUD. PLZ PRAKTISS IT.

Not sure what else to do with this, but I'll continue if these two proceed with their evil plans to commandeer my brain.


	2. I feel the weight of the world

!!OBLIGATORY NOTE!!: ALL THIS COMES OUTTA MY OWN STUPID BRAIN, SO ANY DEEPLY SPECIFIC RESEMBLANCE TO ANY OTHER FIC NOW OR IN THE FUTURE IS TOTAL COINCIDENCE AND I'M SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. HOWEVER, I PROBABLY HATE THE FIC.

* * *

.:(_**…When I look at you, I feel liek I can breathe…**_):.

Axel glared up at the pretentious quote floating above him, wondering if there was a way he could set it on fire. The author had probably made it up off the top of her head, dammit (A/N: SHE DID!), it didn't even mean anything—and, oh, here came the author's notes…

"Would you focus?" Roxas wanted to know from beside him. The two of them hadn't moved from the bench, and now Roxas had one arm crossed and tapped his temple with the other hand, frowning in thought.

"Focus on what exactly?" Axel wanted to know, poking a few letters of the quote out of place.

"The story. Leave those alone, Axel."

"There _is_ no story and I'll put them back in a minute." Axel fiddled with them for a few moments before coming up with, _**When I look at you, I fellate a bIker hince**_.

"Very cute. Now put them back."

"Nobodies are supposed to be good at anagrams," Axel muttered sourly, pushing them back into their proper order. He smirked at the restored quote and knocked an E out of place, glancing over at Roxas to make sure the blond hadn't noticed.

"Okay," Roxas started after a minute. "I'm a famous rock star and you're a devoted fanboy. We meet—"

"Cliché."

Roxas glared at him. "I'm not _done_. We meet at an anime convention and go on an adventure to restore the planet's life force by making everyone in the world eat more Mars Bars." (A/N: LOLOLOL :DDDDDDD)

Axel thought that one over. He could tell Roxas was being deliberately off the wall because, for a pair of people bored with clichés, they couldn't seem to come up with anything else. "I wanna be the rock star," he said finally.

"I'm the rock star."

"Fine. Then I'm a famous voice actor and we meet at one of my panels at the convention."

Roxas shot him a dirty look.

"Roxas."

"_What_."

"Put your pants on."

Axel got shoved off the bench. He rose with a chuckle, even though he was a little worried he'd bruised his butt, and looked out over the park. It hadn't changed, although the baby had gotten really quiet and the sun was closing in on the horizon. It was peaceful here, the lust showed no signs of kicking in, and Axel was actually enjoying himself. He'd needed a rest after the last fic. Roxas had left him and there'd been a lot of running.

"Roxas, maybe we could just take it eas—" Axel cut off sharply and looked around, catching Roxas's swiveling head out of the corner of his eye. "Music?" he murmured.

The blond buried his face in his hands with a little moan, and Axel's nonexistent heart sank.

_I join the queue on your answerphone,  
__And all I am is holding breath…  
__Just pick up, I know you're there.  
__Can't you hear?  
__I'm not myself…_

"NO!" Axel shouted, gritting his teeth and clapping his hands over his ears. "No—_not_ another one for the _love_ of _god_!"

"Shut up and try to figure out what it means," Roxas growled, rising. "Those are our guidelines, we have to conform."

Axel managed to calm down and listen a minute. "It's talking about a phone," he snarled. "We don't _have_ a fucking phone. It doesn't make any _sense_."

"You say that like that's a new thing," Roxas said scathingly. "C'mon. We gotta find a pay phone or something."

"Don't you have a cell phone?"

"Not on me."

"So conjure one."

Roxas frowned and tugged off his black ring, giving it a twist to make it into a phone. Axel was pretty sure they weren't supposed to be able to do that kind of thing, but maybe the plot was getting a little lax in the author's absence. _But if the author's not around, where the fuck did that song come from?_ (A/N: Peekaboo! Wasn't that CLEVER? AM I ANNOYING YOU GUYS YET?)

His lip curled. _She's toying with us. Like food. Bitch._

"All right. Phone." Roxas held it up. "Now what?"

"You're asking _me_? You're the one who decided we needed a phone!"

"No, the _song_ decided that," Roxas said testily.

_Well, go ahead and lie to me,  
__You could say anything.  
__Small talk will be just fine.  
__Your voice is everything we owe to love,  
__And it all depends on you._

"Let's lie to the phone."

Roxas scoffed. "That's pointless."

"You are a _monkey_," the redhead snarled at the pink and baby blue _thing_ that was Roxas's phone for the time being.

"You are _not helping_," Roxas said sharply, jerking it away from him. "We're obviously supposed to talk on it or something. Is it supposed to ring?" he muttered with a frown.

Axel was a lot less concerned with the phone and a lot more concerned with the fact that he simply _did not like_ the song. Of course, he usually didn't like the song because it was almost always one of those sappy love songs that got on his nerves, and… "Eh," he muttered finally. "I've got it."

"Huh?"

But the redhead didn't answer, already pulling off a glove and willing it into the spidery black cell that was apparently his. "We're both supposed to talk."

"This is stupid," Roxas said.

"I know. R-O-X-A-S, 13. Got it memorized," Axel said matter-of-factly, punching that into the cell. That was generally Roxas's number unless the plot specified. He put the phone to his ear and glanced over at Roxas, who was looking steadily more frustrated.

Avril Lavigne's _Girlfriend_ erupted from Roxas's phone exactly two seconds before helpless laughter erupted from Axel.

The blond blushed deeply, and Axel finally managed to get ahold of himself long enough to smother the rest of his guffaws. Roxas took enough hits to his ego in all this that he was normally used to this kind of thing, but a blush like that meant that it was getting to him. "Sorry, man."

"…It's okay."

No, it wasn't, and Axel could tell. "Just answer the phone and it'll go away," he suggested. That was what they were supposed to do, anyway.

"Can't," Roxas said, flinging a hand vaguely at the air. "Song doesn't want me to yet."

_So listen up,  
__This sun hasn't set…  
__(I refuse to believe that it's only me feeling)  
__Just hear me out, I'm not over you yet…  
__(It's love on the line, can you handle it?)_

"_Oh_," Axel said loudly, turning. "It's the stupid sunset. That's what set it off."

"A sunset isn't enough to base a songfic around," Roxas grumbled, still glaring at his cell phone.

Axel didn't answer that. Maybe it was the prolonged exposure to this stuff, but he was starting to suspect that the song was eerily appropriate after all, with the two of them getting to be so estranged like th—

"Heyyy, this is Roxy!" came a cutesy little voice in his ear. "Sorry, but I'm just not around right now! Be a darling and leave me a message, would you? Toodles!"

BEEP

And Axel was laughing too hard to make any noise at all.

"What?" he heard Roxas say, but then his voice came back and he couldn't fucking hear or _breathe_. It seemed like he moved and something got wrenched out of his hand, and by the end of his laughing fit he was sitting on the ground, wiping tears from his eyes and making those helpless little gasping noises that were almost sobs. _Roxy! Darling! TOODLES!_

He finally killed off the last couple of snickers and managed to breathe again. Wow his throat hurt—but wait, Roxas had gotten ahold of his phone! "Roxas, don't—!"

But he was too late, and he could already see the abject horror spreading across his best friend's face as Roxas listened to the recording. Finally, the blond took a breath—or maybe it was a sob—and clicked Axel's phone shut.

_So how do I do normal?  
A smile I fake,  
A permanent wave of cue cards and fix-it kits.  
Can't you tell?  
I'm not myself…_

Axel flinched back as Roxas let out an enraged scream and threw the black phone at the pavement. He followed it up with the pink and blue one, plastic cracking and fragmenting across the stone.

The redhead rolled his eyes. "You and technology."

Roxas shot him a look so vitriolic that Axel could've sworn he had a _heart rate_ for a second and stalked over to the bench. Axel blinked at him, surprised that Roxas hadn't hit him—he really did deserve to be hit for that one, and he'd already braced himself.

Instead, Roxas did something Axel couldn't stand: he dropped onto the bench and dug his fists into his eyes.

Axel sighed deeply and got to his feet, brushing off his cloak and heading over to get the two phones. He turned the one back into his glove and tugged it on as he turned the other back into Roxas's ring and headed over to the blond's side. For a moment he hesitated, and then he knelt, placing a hand on Roxas's knee. "Roxas."

No answer.

_I'm a slow motion accident,  
__Lost in coffee rings and fingerprints.  
__I don't wanna feel anything,  
__But I do.  
__And it all comes back to you._

"Roxas, don't do this."

Silence.

"_Please_."

The blond didn't move.

Axel sighed and ran a hand through his hair, defeated. But when he looked up, he saw that Roxas's arms were moving away. Red-blue eyes focused in on him, and Roxas let out a short sniff. "I hate this," he whispered in a wavering voice.

_You can't,_ Axel thought, but that wouldn't help. He reached to cup the boy's cheek. "I _know_, Rox—" But he stopped short when Roxas flinched away from him.

"Don't," Roxas blurted, glaring at the ground. " 'M not a baby."

_You're crying like one,_ Axel could have said if he was feeling particularly cruel. Fortunately enough for them both, he wasn't. "It's been hard on you. I know. But you've got to remember, Roxas—"

"You were laughing at me." The blond's jaw tightened.

"I _know_ and I'm _sorry_, I am. I wish I could take it back," Axel groaned out, resting his forehead on Roxas's knees. His lips twitched warningly. _No, idiot, do NOT laugh, you will fuck the whole thing UP._

"Get off me."

He did, and steeled himself for a tongue-lashing. Roxas needed to vent, and Axel needed to shut up.

"Of course it seems funny to you," Roxas said acidly, ice-blue eyes narrowed. "You don't have to put up with it. You don't go through this bullshit in every other fic. It doesn't matter that you wear makeup or you're curvy or your eyebrows get more wax than a _candelabra_, you still end up on top all the _fucking_ time."

Jade eyes hardened. Now Roxas was making personal attacks, and Axel didn't appreciate that one bit, but he wasn't going to say something now and get obliterated.

"And _me_, the one with the _Keyblades_, the one with the _girlfriend_, the one who can beat your ass any hour of any day and still try his _damnedest_ to look cool in Deep Dive—_I_ spend the fic on my back. I'm the _weak_ one, the _innocent_ one, the cute little _pretty_ one." His lip curled in unadulterated disgust. "I'm the girl in boy's clothing."

_So listen up,  
Look at me straight,  
Just hear me out,  
Don't make me wait—  
I'm not myself,  
I can't take this,  
Love's on the line…_

Roxas's shoulders slumped even as Axel, unable to restrain himself, put a hand over the blond's.

"I give up."

_Is that your final answer?_

"That's not an option and you know it."

Blue eyes snapped open and glared at Axel, who was glaring right back.

"It sucks. I get it." And Axel plowed on before Roxas could protest. "But we don't have a _choice_ in this. We're just puppets in some chick's hands, and she's gonna do whatever she wants whether we like it or not. All we can do is _hope_," he added, trying to maintain eye contact as Roxas turned sharply to glare at the sun. "There've been good ones, Roxas. I've been there, you've been there—and there're gonna be more."

Axel felt the boy's fingers tremble under his hand. "What if there's not?"

"There _will be_," the redhead promised firmly.

For what seemed like an eternity, blue eyes adamantly avoided green.

_I join the queue on your answer phone,  
__And all I am is holding breath…  
__Just pick up, I know…  
__You're there…_

"This song does not fucking go with what's happening at all."

Roxas broke down and laughed at that, still sniffing a little but finally meeting Axel's gaze. "I know," he said, rubbing self-consciously at one eye. "But a lot of them don't."

Axel saw this as a recovery. He gently slid the black ring back onto Roxas's index finger and got up onto the bench, curling into a ball beside Roxas and resting his head on the blond's shoulder. It wasn't _completely_ comfortable, but his best friend needed this right now. After a minute, he felt Roxas's arm snake around him and slender fingers threaded through his hair.

"So that's why you wanted me to top," Roxas said softly as Axel leaned into the sensation.

The redhead stiffened. _Shit, he's gonna be mad…_

"You were doing it…for me?"

Axel blinked. It was the truth, but he'd expected something more like "you were taking pity on me" or "you felt sorry for me," and then a fistfight he would probably lose. "Er…yeah," he mumbled, and then let out a little surprised sound when Roxas suddenly squeezed him close.

"I love you."

_I love you, too._ "Psch. We're Nobodies. Don't go getting all fluffy on me, kid."

BAM

His butt was definitely bruised now, and Roxas's eyes glinted dangerously from the bench above him. "Who's getting fluffy?"

_So listen up,  
__This sun hasn't set…  
__(I refuse to believe that it's only me feeling)  
__Just hear me out, I'm not over you yet…  
__(It's love on the line, can you handle it?)_

* * *

Author's Note: For the record, this is my first songfic. Ever. And if I have my way, it will be my last. Regardless, this was _freakin' fun_ to write. Song was Imogen Heap's Hear Me Out, because I LOVE Imogen Heap and there happened to be a sunset I could use. (It was never meant to sync up the way it did in some places, but it did. Or it did in my head.)

Chapter titles are ALSO Imogen Heap because SHE'S AWESOME and it's MY FIC and I don't have to put something that makes sense! YOU'RE ALL SO MEAN. SO, SO MEAN. (BAWLS)

And thanks to Quinton Flynn, we know exactly what "Roxas, put your pants on" sounds like in Axel's voice. Those who didn't get it, YouTube it. You won't be sorry.

DOHNT ABYOOZ THA RAWKSUS.

Again, I realize there are good songfics out there and quotes that make sense with the fanfic. I am attacking the ones that are NOT good, so please don't think I'm hitting a specific genre as a whole.

BTW, anyone else notice that the decorations on the pretentious quote are little sad faces? XD I caught that after the fact. Rad.


	3. There's beauty in the breakdown

A deep sigh. "I'm a prince, and you're…I dunno. A prince. And we, um."

Roxas didn't say anything for a minute, sitting shoulder to…well, upper arm with Axel, but not enough to lean on him. It _was_ kind of nice here, when there wasn't music playing and evil soul-sucking phones out to destroy his masculinity, and he was almost reluctant to break the silence. "That's a sucky idea. Why don't we do something with the canonverse?"

Axel stiffened beside him, and his words came out in a pained growl. "If I have to watch you walk away from me one more time—"

"All right. Canonverse. Bad idea." The blond was surprised he'd forgotten about that nerve of Axel's, but then, they hadn't hit a canon-based fic for a while. "We could ask the readers. They've gotta have some original ideas."

The redhead scoffed. "Yeah. _Good stroy right moar_."

"Have you even _looked_?"

"No. Do I have to?" Jade eyes rolled. "They're all the same."

_No, they're not,_ Roxas thought testily, but Axel had stopped caring about the reviews back when people were still theorizing on Roxas's name, so he let it go. (A/N: D: REVIEWERS ILU!!11! SRY MUCH! KTHXBAI.)

"WOULD YOU STOP ABUSING THE GODDAM CAPS."

"Axel, don't argue with the author," Roxas sighed out. "One of us'll end up dead."

Axel crossed his arms sullenly. "She shouldn't even be DOING that. All it does is BREAK FLOW, and then WE have to pretend like we didn't even hear it—"

"Italics. _Please_."

"It's _annoying_."

Roxas wholeheartedly agreed, but the last time Axel provoked an author, he'd found himself on the wrong end of a .45. And Roxas _really_ didn't feel like angsting.

As it happened, they had a sudden distraction, and Roxas was relieved to finally have something to focus on. A girl had appeared in the middle of the sidewalk with a blinding flash of light, which wasn't anywhere near enough to startle the Nobodies, but they got startled anyway. She had amethyst eyes, flowing black locks, breasts the size and weight of small children, enough curves to cause motion sickness, and…uh. Gorgeous, 'kay?

"What in the fuck is a _'Sue_ doing here?"

"Come on," Roxas groaned, getting up and trudging over. She was so utterly, helplessly beautiful that he knew if he wasn't gay this fic, he'd already be screwing her into the ground. The thought made bile rise in his throat. "Oh god, what happened, are you okay," he recited in a flat voice as Axel joined him.

The 'Sue let out a beautiful little moan.

Axel drew back a foot.

"_No_, Axel."

They both took a step back as she moaned again, louder this time and almost _orgasmic_, and rubbed at her ebony-lashed eyes with her pale, delicate hands. (A/N: Okay, from now on I'm just gonna put "blah" and you can imagine that there's a pretty-sounding adjective or five in front of every body part.)

Axel glared at the sky. "_Breaking flow_."

(A/N: Am not.)

"Are _too_."

"Where…am I?" came a blah blah voice, and the blah girl slowly sat up, brushing her blah locks aside with a few blah blah fingers.

"The U.S. of A.," Axel said bluntly. "We think."

As the blah girl started to rise, Roxas recognized the signs. _Here we go._ And he and Axel both sat down to wait.

The girl had the aforementioned blah black hair, which tumbled in blah curls all the way to the blah small of her blah blah back. She was wearing an aquamarine shirt with a somewhat Greek design and a completely unnecessary gold sash tied around her blah waist. The sleeves hugged at her blah shoulders and billowed out in a very non-Greek fashion to the blah wrists, where she had three gold, white, and blue bracelets at each blah blah hand. These were adorned with archaic symbols that were probably related to either Celtic designs or 1337 speak.

Axel looked up. "That it?"

"Think so," Roxas said, starting to rise. "Wait—no, narrative was catching its breath."

She was also wearing no less than four rings on each blah hand, all beautifully crafted and so large that she could barely move her blah fingers. Her blah hair was caught up in a bright blue headband with little silver stars woven into the material, and if one looked close (presumably after one had filled her with lead) one could see streaks of every color of the rainbow in that blah blah blah black. There was also a pearl choker around her blah neck that brought out her blah blah eyes. Her skirt was pink and rivaled Kairi's in its unrelenting shortness, and she had a blah belt around her blah waist that sparkled blah in the setting sunlight. Her legs were blah and blah and she had on blah sandals with blah blabbity blah that brought out her blah blah yark yark which was very fap fap and on the whole she made Roxas want to shoot himself in the head until he couldn't pull the trigger anymore.

"Who are you?" the blah girl asked, glancing over at each of them.

"I'm Axel and he's Roxas, and we hate you," Axel growled at her.

Her blue-purple eyes filled with tears. "What? Why…?"

"Don't mind him, he's a jerk," Roxas told her matter-of-factly, shooting Axel a warning glare. They'd probably pissed off the author enough by now, and despite what he said he wasn't keen on having those scissors jammed up his nose. "What's your name?"

"Minnie Dianabelle Axelliana the Eighth," she said, her eyes wandering to Axel's and then darting away.

Axel stalked back over to the bench and lay down on his stomach like he wanted to die right there.

"Minnie, then," Roxas said with false merriment.

"I prefer Axelliana," Minnie said quickly.

"_Minnie_," Roxas repeated with a fixed smile. Honestly. Axel hooked enough 'Sues on his own that it was almost cruel to do this to him in a yaoi fic.

Minnie pouted, but she seemed to get the message. "So…you two are in love, right?" she asked innocently, her eyes never leaving his even as she twisted her hands uncertainly behind her back.

_Well no shit, Sherlock._ "Yeah, we are," Roxas said, forcing astonishment into his voice. "But how'd you know that?" He gaped at her. But then he stopped. That was probably a little much.

She smiled. "I guess I'm just intuitive like that!" she said brightly.

Oh god he hated her.

"Well…" A pained expression crossed Minnie's face. "I'm in love with Axel, too, but…"

The redhead on the bench thrashed sharply as if he was undergoing electroshock therapy.

Amethyst eyes rose to Roxas's sadly, and Minnie made a valiant attempt at a smile. "But I know he's better off with you."

"Thanks." But Roxas was focused on the taller Nobody. "Wait here a minute, would you?" he asked, rising to go to him.

"But—"

"Please?"

Minnie looked profoundly disappointed, but she didn't move as Roxas went to Axel's side. "Hey."

The redhead grunted.

"Axel."

" 'M all right."

Roxas sighed, bending down to Axel's level. He could usually stand 'Sues, for better or for worse, but Axel hated the things with a passion. It was almost strong enough to truly and honestly call it _hatred_ of the real and complete variety. "We'll get rid of her somehow," Roxas promised, resisting the urge to run his knuckles along Axel's cheek.

The other Nobody sighed into the bench. "Rox, it's okay."

"No. We will."

Axel turned over, and tired jade eyes met Roxas's. "Why're you concerned about it?"

"Don't ask stupid questions."

"Okay, but…" This time the sigh was almost an angered grunt. "_I_ wasn't concerned when it was your balls on the line. I even laughed at you…I would've done it _again_, too, if I hadn't stopped myself."

"I'm not mad about it." Roxas chuckled a little. "If it was you, you know I would've laughed at you, too."

"That's different."

"No it's not."

Axel glared at him, but then his gaze softened and he sighed. "Fine. What've you got in mind?"

"Find Riku and pass her off on him."

"Choice!" Axel said, brightening. He'd hated Sora's best friend ever since Riku snatched _his_ best friend—and while the blond was on better terms with Riku, Roxas still never seemed to get along with the guy.

"It's getting dark," Minnie pointed out. "Shouldn't we go home and get to bed?"

"_Capital_ idea," Axel muttered, getting up off the uncomfortable bench and standing a little unusually close to Roxas. "House ready yet?"

"Yeah," Roxas said as the plot finally filtered that information through his brain. "Double bed upstairs and no parental involvement, guaranteed."

"Perfect. This'll be over in no time."

"Guys, it might rain or something," Minnie told them anxiously as she approached, looking at the sky. As if to punctuate her words (though it was more likely a device to chase the boys up to bed), a finger of lightning spiked far off in the distance. Minnie let out a little squeak and clung to Axel's arm. He wrenched it away from her in disgust and started down the street.

"So? What direction?" he asked Roxas as the blond quickly caught up with him. When Minnie bounced up alongside them, Axel hooked a possessive arm around Roxas's shoulders. She smiled broadly and let out an ecstatic fangirl squeal.

"We're heading in basically the right way," Roxas told him, glaring at Minnie.

Axel's lips twitched. "Jealous?"

"No."

"Don't be."

"I'm _not_."

In response, Axel planted a kiss just above his ear. That really shouldn't have done anything—Axel had kissed him enough times that Roxas was practically immune to the sensation, but for some stupid reason it made something almost flutter where his heart should have been.

LINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINE

"There is a BORDER in the edit section!" Axel shouted at the deafening letters claiming to be a line as they reached Roxas's house. He started to rant about that, but what Minnie said next stopped him dead.

"Do you mind if I stay over with you?" she asked Roxas, clasping her hands behind her back and twisting her shoulders adorably.

"Of course not."

Axel stared at him in growing horror and chagrin. "_I_ mind!"

"Yeah, because you're the jerk who hates her initially and then suddenly just falls in _love_ with the girl for some unknown reason and becomes her _best friendy wendy evar_," Roxas rattled off spitefully.

Axel looked sick to his stomach, but Minnie was conveniently able to miss this little exchange and go flouncing into the house. "Wow, it's so pretty in here!" she said, throwing her arms out to twirl around and almost knocking over an expensive-looking vase.

"Thanks," Roxas grunted sourly, stepping past her.

"It's just a house," Axel muttered, and followed Roxas upstairs.

"Um!" Minnie called from the bottom of the stairwell.

Both boys sighed heavily and turned. "Yes?" "_What_."

"Do you mind if I sleep up there with you?"

They stared at her. "_Yes_ we mind!" Axel exploded, and then turned sharply as Roxas let out a low sigh. "Oh come _on_, Rox, you can't seriously—!"

Minnie giggled. "You're so shy, you two!"

"Come on up," Roxas said in a dead voice and kept going up the stairs.

"_Roxas_!"

Axel glared back and forth from him to the girl who looked like an obscure clothing store had vomited on her, but followed Roxas when it was clear that he wasn't stopping. "That was…oh my _god_! Did you see that? Utter cockblock!" he hissed at Roxas as they started into the bedroom.

"Yeah. Because we were totally going to have sex."

"We _might've_!"

"What are you, in the mood or something?"

"No, but…" Axel suddenly looked horrified. "What if the lust kicks in while she's up here?"

Roxas paled. For a few moments he couldn't speak, and Minnie came up and bounced happily onto the bed. "Then she'll die of yaoi," he told Axel in an undertone. "It's the way she'd want to go."

"But what about us?"

"What _about_ us?" Roxas thundered suddenly. "It's _never been_ about us! It's been about _her_ this whole time! _Her_ and _her_!" he said forcefully, pointing first to Minnie and then at the ceiling. "The only reason why we're even here is _this_," he added, patting his cheeks with both hands to indicate his face. "I'm cute, you're hot. That's what it boils down to. That's _it_."

Axel's lips were parted, and for a moment he almost looked hurt. "Not always," he managed finally.

"Exactly. And we have to hold out for those just like you said, which means…" Roxas turned to regard Minnie with dread. "We have to play by the rules."

Axel let out an angered sigh and shook his head, but Roxas was already transforming his clothing into pajamas. "C'mon," he said, dropping into the bed beside the 'Sue, who snuggled up to him happily.

The redhead's eye twitched. "I sleep naked."

Minnie let out a little gasp and blushed. "N-no, I don't want his _willy_ all up…!"

"_So sleep downstairs_!"

"Axel, I'm tired." Roxas's voice was pleading.

"_Fine_," Axel spat, and changed the cloak into some black pajama bottoms. "Move," he ordered Minnie.

She shot him an impudent pout and pulled closer to Roxas. "No. You're mean."

Axel's fingers _ached_ to call his chakrams.

"You can be right here," Minnie said brightly, patting the space on her other side.

"_I'm NOT_—!"

"Could we please just go to bed before my brain explodes?" Roxas asked plaintively, pressing a fist to his forehead. He was getting a headache, and whenever Roxas got a headache, it was fucking unbearable.

Axel muttered something about raping Minnie until she died and yanked up the covers, collapsing under them and pulling them tightly around him. His back was to both of them, but Roxas knew it was just to escape Minnie—who was, as it happened, blushing brightly. "D-do you have to be shirtless?" she whispered to Axel.

"Don't make me melt your organs. It's messy, and Roxas won't like that."

Roxas was past caring. Hopefully the headache wouldn't still be there when he woke up, and he was already slipping into dreams that were almost always a _million_ times more pleasant than the fic he was currently in. Granted, the dreams were usually about Sora, but Roxas found something fascinating and almost soothing about watching someone else's life play out…learning his fears, his hopes, his dreams…

Minnie shifted abruptly, jolting him out of the dream, and it didn't stop there—she turned over, adjusted her pillow, pulled up the sheet, shifted again, squirmed, sighed, turned over again, messed with her hair, flipped onto her stomach, and finally froze.

Axel glared over his shoulder at her. "Are you _god damned_ comfortable yet?"

Minnie didn't answer that. "I have to pee," she said suddenly, and tore up out of the bed, jostling Roxas and elbowing Axel in the jaw as she jumped off the bed and pounded towards the bathroom.

There was silence as both Nobodies slowly became certain that they _could_ really and truly hate.

Then Axel suddenly seized Roxas and dragged the boy toward him, cackling madly.

"Axel, what're you _doing_?"

"Let's see her pry us apart _now_!" Axel said, chuckling into his ear.

Roxas was a little worried about what would happen when Minnie got back from the bathroom, but for the moment he was just happy to be up against Axel instead of _that_. "Mmmkay, but you gotta let me sleep," he mumbled, already halfway there.

"Hush," Axel said simply, running his hand through Roxas's hair. It felt nice, Roxas thought foggily, even if it wasn't enough to distract him from the headache, and he drifted off that way—not even hearing it when Minnie came back and pouted for hours.

* * *

(A/N: DO YOU LIKE THE NEW BORDER GUYS? THANKS AXELBABE!)

Axel growled faintly in his sleep and his fingers twitched like he was thinking about strangling something.

* * *

They trumped downstairs for breakfast the next morning, since Axel made a ridiculously good cheese and bacon omelet (and he always melted the cheese _exactly_ how Roxas wanted). Minnie probably hadn't slept at all, but she still looked like she had the other day, except now she was wearing—

"NO!" Axel screamed at the top of his lungs.

—a bright lavender shirt with gold embroidering along the sleeves and folds—

"NO!"

—the same bracelets from before along with a few new ones and a beautiful green headband—

"_NO_!"

"It'll be faster if you don't interrupt," Roxas said from where he was dissecting the omelet. He liked to eat it a certain way, bacon first.

Axel glared at the frying pan where he was intentionally burning Minnie's breakfast. But the narrative didn't pick up again, so Axel silently declared it a victory for canon and dumped the burnt mass onto a plate. "Here."

Roxas had expected a fight, but Minnie was so absolutely taken with Axel that she didn't seem to notice the fact that she was eating what looked like tar and eggs.

"You two have to head off to school, and I've got a job," Axel informed Roxas after consulting the plot. "Sucks to be you."

"What do you do?"

"I work at Gamestop."

"Naturally."

So Roxas gulped down his orange juice and Axel raided the fridge for tequila and Minnie dabbed daintily at her lips with a pink and blue and purple and green handkerchief that managed not to clash with itself and they somehow got out of the house in time to reach school and work respectively.

Ironically enough, Roxas was a little uneasy being separated from Axel for the first time since the beginning of the fic, but that was mainly because Minnie was humming happily to herself and kept shooting him disarming looks. "So you and Axel aren't…" She sighed. "You're having troubles. Aren't you?"

"No, not really."

Amethyst eyes brimmed with concern. "You know you can talk to me, Roxas. About anything."

Roxas gritted his teeth as the 'Sue's niche in the storyline became evident. "It's okay, Minnie. Really, it is."

She sighed in that infuriating way a 'Sue does when she thinks she's right. It's a very distinct way of sighing, and one that no other archetype can quite pull off—not even extreme bitches.

Suddenly Minnie's thin little hand was around his wrist and she was dragging him away from homeroom. "Min—Minnie!" he got out in a panic. "School!" Not that he was really that concerned about school itself, but the act of attending school was a _rhythm_. No matter how weird or painful the rest of it got, there would always be classes and homework and teachers, and Roxas appreciated routine when his life was this messed up.

"I made something for you," she said simply. "Downstairs. In the theater classroom. I've been working on it for weeks."

Roxas didn't think she'd even _existed_ that long, but he was used to these blatant breaches of logic, so he didn't bring it up.

"Minnie, we're seriously going to miss class and be in trouble," he said instead, hoping the thought of a flaw on her record would make her let him go.

She just giggled infuriatingly and threw open the door. "Ta-da! Do you like it?"

_Oh. God. No._

Roxas's jaw dropped at the sight of it. He'd been in dresses before and hated it, but Minnie had gone all out. This thing was a _princess_ dress, an overgrown tutu, a pink _monstrosity_ that could shrivel testicles with its very presence. "It's got bows, too!" Minnie told him with a perfectly evil smile, pulling up a pair of pink ones that were obviously meant for his hair. "And I've got the makeup and stockings and high heels and jewelry all ready for you! Axel will fall back in love with you in no time!"

_How?_

Axel would take one look at him in this and barf himself stupid. And the redhead used to _like_ the idea. Even Roxas had occasionally had unclean thoughts about Axel in a dress—_once_. But after the kinds of depraved things they'd gone through, that was all very different. One had to look no further than the glimmering pink tent in the theater classroom at What The Fuck High School to understand why.

Roxas thought about dropping to his hands and knees and begging.

But he knew that wouldn't do any good. This was a highlight. The plot _demanded_ it, and no matter how much he struggled, Minnie was _going_ to get him into that dress. "Okay," he mumbled, letting the vest fall off him more than removing it. He started to reach for the spiked zipper at his throat, but he saw Minnie move towards him and stopped, figuring she wanted to do this herself.

Instead, she deliberately put two shaking hands on his shoulders and rested her forehead against his. She suddenly seemed much older. "I," she whispered from between gritted teeth, "_can't_…do this to you."

The sensation of relief that washed over him was so intense that Roxas could almost believe it was real. "Thank you."

Minnie jolted away from him like he'd burned her. "What have they done to you that you're thanking _me_?" she asked, pain etched all over her face.

He saw her lip tremble. "Minnie, don't…" Not because she was special, not because she meant anything at all to him—but because Roxas hated to see people cry.

It was too late, though, and her face was buried in her hands. "But I _love_ you!" she said, surfacing and red-eyed and hysterical—and Roxas realized the author was speaking through her abomination. "You, him, them—you mean _everything_ to me! And it _hurts_ me to do this…" She shook her head, sniffing. "It hurts me to _see_ you like this, and they…and they just…"

"They don't care," Roxas said firmly. "They don't care how the others feel, they don't care how you feel, and they certainly don't care how _I_ feel. It's a fact of life here, and Axel and I have come to accept that. Get it together and get over it," he said sharply, and stalked from the room. Behind him, he heard Minnie burst into tears of rejection as the author retreated to the heavens.

* * *

Author's Note: OWBURN. But getting burned is nothing new if you play with fire. Still a lot of drama but not as much fun as the last one; I ended up getting all emotional at the end and a few people smacked me in the head (Roxas included).

SOOZ AR SOOZ NO MADUR WAT THAY DOOZ.

Minnie Dianabelle Axelliana the Eighth is my first Monster 'Sue. I've never been quite that decorative before and it's really freakin' exhausting. Even so, I adore her just as much as it's possible to adore something you hate devotedly. And I realize the LINELINELINE quip doesn't hit this category specifically, and I don't want to be mean about that, I was really just addressing it (and proposing a handy-dandy solution).

If you have a 'Sue and this chapter offends you, then please take solace in the knowledge that I am deeply and truly _not sorry _and _I don't fucking care_.


	4. Calm down for a moment, look in my eyes

"Minnie's gone."

Axel could tell from the moment Roxas met him outside Gamestop that something was wrong, but he also knew that whatever it was had been resolved. "What'd she do to you?"

Roxas looked to one side, his hair falling over his eyes. "No."

"You got it. Shutting up."

Roxas started walking and Axel fell into step beside him, still wondering a little but knowing enough not to pursue the matter. "So did the fourth chapter start yet? I lost track, we got one _hell_ of a lousy customer—"

"_Yeah_."

Axel bit his tongue at Roxas's sharpness, feeling something like disappointment. "No advice, then."

"Were you really expecting any?"

_Damn._ The blond's mood sure wasn't showing any signs of improvement. "_No_, it's just…" Axel glared at the ground. _I was hoping someone would hear us._

(A/N: U GOT MAEL.)

Before Axel could yell about the hypocrisy, something slammed into his skull hard enough to make stars flicker in front of his eyes. He must have blacked out for about two seconds, because suddenly he was on the ground and Roxas was beside him on all fours. "What the fuck just happened?" he slurred out, getting up with a pained grunt and checking his mouth for lost teeth.

"You got hit in the head with a rock. You all right?"

Axel gave him a funny look. "A _rock_?"

"Yeah."

"How is that _mail_?"

"It's got words on it."

"Gimme the goddam thing."

Roxas did, and Axel turned it around until he could read the fine print, muttering about who was going to suffer for it if he found blood spatters.

_Ok, so you guys hate clichés. I know how you feel. I hate how everyone likes to make Roxas the emo kid in pink with tight pants and the stupid personality. I hate the Sues that are way too direct about basically wanting the character so bad that it's depressing. lol_

_Hey Axel, you should remember the last fic I employed you in. Was that so bad? Trust me._

"Last fic?" Roxas frowned from where he was reading over Axel's shoulder. "Who is this? The author?"

"No…" Axel's eyes were distant.

_Try going into different cross-overs where other characters have the same issues. You need to realize you have full control of how things are going aside from the occasional intervention from your author, but for the most part she's only helping you make a statement. So go all out and try something way out there._

"A _statement_?" Axel growled. "Like what kind of statement? _Aksul 'n Roxy luv eech uther_?"

"Doesn't matter," Roxas said shortly, and Axel glanced over at him in surprise. "Whoever this is, she's got a point. We have a lot of freedom here, and we should take advantage of it while it lasts."

"Creep Stats Three!"

Roxas crooked an eyebrow. "Er. What?"

Axel wasn't paying attention, grinning blissfully at the rock and the signature below the note. "Rock star. I get it. _That_ fic, then." He put a hand lovingly to his chest and closed his eyes. "She made me feel…"

"Oh, _god_, Axel, don't do this."

He smirked at Roxas and started to get up. "Like somebody cared," he murmured anyway, glancing back down at the rock. Then he chucked it over his shoulder. "So. We better take this to heart." The Nobody frowned. "Figuratively speaking. As long as we've got control over—"

(A/N: OH NO YOU DON'T.)

All of a sudden pain erupted down his back, like someone had shoved a ramrod through his spine. "Rox…!"

"I know," Roxas grunted, his teeth gritted against the pain.

"Script," Axel got out, panting in agony. "She's giving us a script, just…just relax into it, Roxas, don't fight it…" But Roxas was fighting it, _why_…they had no choice, it worked out to the same thing anyway. Axel gyrated a little, trying to find the center, the place where it'd click, and the script swam foggily in front of his eyes. "Roxas-chan, you're so…xa…" He squinted. "Hawaii?"

"_Kawaii_," Roxas spat.

"Her handwriting is _shit_," Axel growled from between gritted teeth. But then he noticed Roxas's legs were shaking, he was moving _against_ it—and Axel was terrified he'd rupture something. "Roxas _stop it_ before you—!"

_Click_

A blissful smile slipped across Axel's face, and he seized the struggling Roxas up in his arms. "Roxas-chan, you're soooo _kawaii_!" he squealed, rubbing his cheek against Roxas's temple.

The blond smiled awkwardly, blushing. "Axel-kun, onegai, you know I don't like it when you do this in public."

"Nobody's around," Axel insisted with a pout. (A/N: LOL PUN RITE)

"_Still_," Roxas said, introducing Axel to his own pout. He gently pulled away, but took Axel's hand in his and smiled up at him.

There were tears standing in his eyes.

Axel's brow furrowed. "Roxas-chan? What's the matter, ne?"

"Eh?" A pale white hand came up to rub at his eyes, and Roxas blinked in adorable confusion. "Ano…that's weird. I don't know. Oh well!" he said brightly, getting up on his tiptoes to peck Axel on the lips. "Let's go! Ore aishitaruyo, Axel-kun!"

"Aishitaru!"

_I love you!_

_I love you! _

_IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIt'snotrealIt'snotrealIt'snotrealIT'SNOTREAL!_

* * *

Axel woke and curled inward with a groan. He hurt all over from the script, and he couldn't remember anything at first. Then he inhaled, and the smell of stale sex filled his nose. "Ah…damn." It was over, then. He had to start moving. Had to find Roxas, pick up the pieces, and go on.

He was lying on the cold, hard floor of a basement—it was probably sexy at the time, _somehow_—and his clothes were nowhere in sight. Sure, he could conjure some, but that would take a lot longer than transforming something else. _Forget that. Find Roxas first._ He didn't even want to think about what Roxas might be going through… _He was crying, that little moron…he shouldn't let it get to him, I TOLD him not to let it get to him…_

Water switched off from somewhere nearby, and Axel groped through the semi-darkness until he could see the dank shower in the corner. Roxas was coming out, drenched and fiddling with the towel around his waist. As he took a step toward Axel and looked up, the redhead realized he was limping. _Huh. Wonder which one of us got porked._

"There's a shower this time," Roxas said simply, stepping away from it. "You'll have to conjure a towel, though."

Axel watched him start to limp past, and suddenly he remembered something. He seized the blond by the arms and slammed him onto the ground, not listening—not even _caring_ when Roxas screamed in pain. "You _bastard_!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "You fucking son of a _bitch_! You _fought_ it, you idiot! Do you have any idea what you could have done to yourself? You could get stuck like that _forever_!"

Blue eyes only glared up at him, lips locked tight from the pain of getting slammed down on the ass that had just taken so much abuse, and Axel felt something wrench painfully in the place where his heart should have been. He lowered his head onto Roxas's shoulder, closing his eyes against the forbidden tears.

"I'm losing you."

* * *

It took Axel several minutes in the shower, resting his head against the wall where Roxas had probably rested his earlier, to piece himself together again. No one could help him with this—every character had to do it on his own: remember, accept, deny, and forget. He was _not_ Axel who lived down the street from Roxas and went to the same high school and fucking _fucked_ Roxas in the middle of an apartment building basement. He was Number Eight: the Flurry of Dancing Flames. He wielded fire and chakrams. He almost single-handedly disbanded the Organization.

He would die a thousand times if it meant he could save his best friend.

The details were coming back now, it was almost over. He stepped out of the shower and took several minutes to conjure a towel, preferring that to transforming one of the grimy jars on the shelves nearby. "Roxas?" he called, squeezing it around his explosion of hair.

No answer.

"Roxas."

He waited for a moment, shivering a little in the icy air, and started farther into the room. "The fuck are you? If you're running off again I'm gonna be pissed."

The redhead stopped when he got to a place where he could see the whole room. It was empty, and Axel was worried. Well, about as worried as a Nobody could get—which didn't amount to much, but still. "If DiZ got his filthy mitts on him, I swear to god I'll feed that bastard to Cerberus," Axel promised darkly, padding over to a desk to look for something to make clothes out of.

And then it hit him. The plot came reeling into his head like a freight train, and Axel had to get acclimated immediately. But he was used to that part, and he didn't need a script to play this character; it was close enough to him not to be a problem. He cycled through the plot in his mind, brows drawn in concentration, and let out a sigh of relief. No songs. No 'Sues. Nothing emasculating. It wouldn't be pleasant, but Roxas could handle this. Axel felt a swell of pride to think that.

Roxas would take this like a man.

But that didn't explain why the narrative was stuck on him. He'd noticed how it was hopping heads between chapters, but according to the plot, it was supposed to be focused on Roxas right now. Oh well. If the author wanted to screw up her own stupid story, it wasn't up to Axel to fix it.

That said, she'd actually included some foreshadowing now and again, he realized as he pulled on the clothes that the plot had kindly provided. That meant the bitch thought she was _clever_. _A little talk with Zexion should clear THAT illusion right up._

Axel checked his inventory. Serpentine shirt, check—leather pants, check—shoulder tattoo, press it so it stings, _ah_, there—chakram necklace, check—cigs, always. He honestly couldn't remember the last fic where he hadn't had these on him, but those would roll around again eventually. So, he could fuck around until—ah, damn, it was almost noon already, and he had to be at the square by twelve thirty or he'd miss Roxas.

He took off at a run and got to the square just before twelve twenty-five, lighting up and gazing coolly around at the civilians. Axel was no stranger to looking cool.

_Target sighted._

Roxas was walking with a girl who was about to stop mattering at all, wearing a sleeveless blue shirt and designer jeans. Axel winced at the number of belts he had on—those would take some time to get off, and time wasn't something Axel had a lot of.

Twelve thirty. _Clobberin' time._

He started to flick the cigarette away, reconsidered, and kept it with him as he moved smoothly towards the couple splitting up by the alleyway next to a candy shop. (Axel marveled at the irony.) But it wouldn't be long before Roxas was out of reach—he had to move fast, but not fast enough to be heard, and he couldn't grab the kid while his girlfriend was still in plain sight. _Feh._ Axel was used to juggling this many variables, even if the guidelines were warning him that this one wasn't written in stone and Roxas could really get away.

The girl disappeared into a plot hole somewhere and Roxas stopped by the candy store to ogle some of the window goods. _He's stalling. There's no ice cream in there._ Axel smirked. _I love this kid._

He slowed up a bit, still making a beeline but not moving fast enough to draw attention. The last thing he wanted was for some made up cops to get in the way and slow down the plot—in and out, that was how it worked. And then in and then out again, and a lot more after that, but. You know.

Square was practically deserted, no one was watching, _perfect_, and Roxas definitely didn't hear him approach. He grabbed the blond by the arm and jerked him into the alleyway, slamming him up against the wall chest first and twisting an arm behind him. Axel hated seeing Roxas's face when he did this.

_Gotta bring out the scary voice._

"Afternoon, kid. Out here all alone?" Axel asked, smooth as oil and lethal as poison.

Roxas was frozen at first, but then he struggled. Axel quelled it with practiced ease. "What—do you _want_—with me?" the boy demanded, gasping and jerking ineffectually.

"Ahhh, you won't mind it much. If we do this right, it'll only cost you a couple of minutes," Axel promised, grinning nastily. Roxas couldn't see him, but grinning nastily was just something he was good at, and he liked to keep in practice.

He felt a tremor go through Roxas's body. _Very nice, he's getting even better at the trembling._ "What are you going to do?" came the desperate, quiet voice.

If he wasn't careful, Roxas's performance was going to outshine his completely. "I don't really wanna ruin the suspense, kid, but I'll give you a hint." He mashed the still hot end of the cigarette into Roxas's bare arm, listening to the resulting choked grunt. "It'll _hurt_."

Roxas started cursing like a sailor and thrashing like he always, always did, and Axel had to react quickly to slam his face into the brick in time. "Shut the fuck up," he snarled. From the spots of blood, he must've gotten Roxas's nose.

The blond was shaking visibly now, and he pressed against the brick with his left hand like he wanted to shove the world away. "Please don't do this," he whispered.

Axel ground the boy's whole body forward this time. "I thought I told you to shut your fucking mouth."

"C-can't breathe—!"

"_Stop_." Axel raked his nails down the tender underside of Roxas's right arm. "_Talking_."

The blond let out a little whimper and fell silent, and Axel turned to the task at hand. The obvious problem was getting through all those fucking _belts_. Roxas could literally have put Leon to shame with the number he had circling his coveted rear, and Axel didn't have a knife on him. Hell, even if he did, he wasn't going to take the time to saw through all those. He couldn't reach the clasps, but if he spun Roxas around, the boy would run. They both knew it. So he had to improvise.

_Say goodbye to your favorite pair,_ Axel thought as he dug his hand in between Roxas's belts and his designer jeans. If he found a thong under there, Roxas was going to get one hell of a wedgie.

"Please no," Roxas was whispering to the bricks, only degrees from tears. "Please no. Please no. Please no."

Axel thought about jumping on him for that, but he figured the kid had suffered enough for the moment. Besides, the designer jeans were coming apart like pepperoni. He blamed the plot.

The underwear came next, and then Axel's own drawers, and Roxas's pleas were getting steadily louder and more frantic. The redhead decided some hair pulling was in order. "Keep it _down_," he barked, clenching his fingers around those golden strands and wrenching Roxas's head back.

Roxas was crying now, he could see the tear streaks, and he smirked in recognition. _Crocodile tears._ The last time Roxas ever truly cried during a rape scene, people were still figuring out that he was related to Sora somehow. He could take it without so much as a second blink, and it made Axel, who cried for real almost every time, _crazy_ with envy.

First thrust—_Dammit,_ Axel thought, and only barely managed to hold in a hiss of pain. Roxas was back at virgin status, despite the fact that Axel had hoped the plot would overlook that detail, and it hurt them both to pull this off without lube. He had to keep this from the readers, though, so he gritted his teeth and thrust again, harder, and Roxas choked on his own sobs against the brick. Axel wasn't even aiming for the prostate—there was just pain, nothing else, and they were about to hit the part Axel hated.

The part where Roxas started to enjoy it.

Gradually, heart-wrenching sobs became pained groans, and pained groans became seductive moans. Roxas was getting more seamless in his progression, Axel noticed, but the fact that this didn't make physical sense was a bit of a setback. He could tell Roxas had gotten a hand into his pants and was helping himself along whenever the plot was focused on something else.

_Well, fuck._ He was breaking the rules, but Axel angled himself anyway and heard Roxas's short gasp.

"_Don't do that_!" the blond hissed over his shoulder. "We're gonna—we're gonna _hit_ it at—_different_—_times_!" he got out, stretching some of his words in time with Axel's thrusts.

The number one rule of perfect sex is simultaneous climaxes. Axel had that part memorized, but it was a real bitch to put into practice. He could remember a lot of awkward little conversations in the past: "Ax…are you?" "Yeah. You?" "Uh-huh…" " 'Kay." "Wait wait wait!" "I am! I am!" "Okay, go…faster than—no no, too much!" "All right, but you gotta _hurry_, kid!" "I _am_, dammit, just—oh—wait—YES!"

And now they weren't syncing, which was just great.

"You are _too_—goddam—_slow_—I'm not gonna m-_make_ it," Roxas rattled off into the wall, panting desperately.

"You _better_."

"I _can't_!"

Axel growled and went over their emergency tactics in his head. "You—_stop_ that—with your _hand_, and—_tell_ me when to—_hit_ the prostate," he panted finally.

"Whenever—you're _ready_, I'm—_almost_—"

"Okay—hold on…_hold_—on…"

"I can't—_do that_, Axel, it's—gonna—!"

"All right, _going_—!"

"Now now now now _now_!"

The redhead slammed that prostate for all he was worth and Roxas's back arched, his mouth open in Axel's favorite animalistic scream as he clawed at the brick. Axel saw euphoria, it looked the same as his last visit, and then it was back down to earth again. Kind of a worthless trip, but he could tell that the delay had made Roxas's climax _very_ intense, which _did_ make it worth the trouble. The blond was still recovering from it, leaning against the brick wall like it was the only thing in the world that could support him.

Axel glanced around for the statistics and squinted. "A fourth of a second difference. New _record_!" he whooped to Roxas, grinning. "That means we beat Sora and Demyx!"

"I still don't understand how they managed that one," Roxas grumbled as Axel pulled out and stumbled back a bit. "Demyx is _horrible_ at coordinating…"

"Dialogue?"

"None," Roxas snapped, sinking carefully to the ground. "_Go_."

_Crap. He's still mad,_ the redhead thought angrily, like Roxas had any _right_ to be mad after the shit he just pulled.Axel turned and tried to stalk off the way he was supposed to, but instead he wobbled and threw out a hand to catch himself. Hell, even if he was a Nobody, he wasn't superhuman.

He glanced over his shoulder at Roxas, just to make sure he was okay—the last thing he needed was for something to go wrong when he was supposed to be offstage. But Roxas was deep into the fic, his face a perfect combination of mortification, astonishment, curiosity, and heartbreak.

_Damn, that kid's getting good at this._

* * *

Author's Note: Curiosity absolutely is not supposed to be there, but since Roxas was somehow supposed to _enjoy_ that sick, sick act, I had to make his composite reaction just as fucked up. Axel I was pretty happy with; I was worried he'd get all squeamish about smacking Roxas around, but he actually wanted to do a little more than I let him.

RAYP HERTZ.

Oh—and the Japinzees? Intentionally misspelled and misused. I DID take a class and I DO have a basic idea what I'm doing, which is why I DON'T throw together crap Japanese in my serious fics.

MAEL CREDIT: Creep-stats3, thanks a mil for the contribution! (But I'm sorry I didn't exactly wait for your permish before posting, I've been short on time. And sorry for Axel's mispronunciation, he has trouble with underscores.) As you darlings may have noticed, the review center can be the characters' mailbox if you want. :3 Next chapter goes up on 8/13, so be sure to wish them a Happy Akuroku Day!

NOTE: I may or may not have them reference other fics again depending on what you say and do, so before anyone rants about SPESHUL TREETMENT, the one I DID reference was kinda related to this one. (And recent, which is why the reaction was pretty instanteous.)


	5. We are surrounded, give in, give in

Oh god did Roxas adore watching Axel sleep. There was something so helpless about him when he wasn't armed with that knifelike gaze, when he was finally and completely relaxed with his lips slightly parted and his side rising and falling like a sleeping kitten's. Roxas was really pretty sure that Nobodies didn't have lungs, either, but they still breathed…or it felt like breathing, anyway. Sometimes he actually _hoped_ they didn't have lungs, because if they could breathe without those, then maybe…

_Screw it._ Roxas was never going to get used to this inner turmoil. His very definition as a character hinged on his lack of a heart and the feelings that came with it, but feelings were the very basis of every character in existence. It was at the point now where he couldn't remember if he really had feelings or he was just tricking himself into believing all the time. _Maybe I don't exist as a character,_ he mused, but that didn't make any sense. If he didn't exist as a character, he wouldn't be able to think these things now, or influence other characters within his sphere of origin.

It was too confusing a train of thought to master, and Roxas growled at it and crawled across the sand to Axel. It was time to wake him up, anyway.

Axel always curled up into a ball when he slept, so if Roxas was in his arms at the time, it looked like he was trying to protect the boy from everything in the world. Now Roxas shoved him over on his back and pried those jealous arms apart so he could settle comfortably on top of Axel's soggy shirt and leggings. It was awkward and it took him a couple of tries, but he got there and folded his arms on his best friend's chest so he could nestle his chin there.

"Happy Akuroku Day, Axel."

Axel blinked up at him. "…_Happy_?" he mumbled.

"I'm in a fluffy mood. Enjoy it while it lasts."

That made Axel relax a little. Roxas waited patiently for him to yawn, smirk woozily up at him, and gradually take in the fact that something felt very _wrong_…

"Don't look," Roxas said shortly, catching Axel's jaw in hand as the redhead tried to do just that. "Guess."

Jade eyes narrowed at him, but Axel thought that over. He felt Axel's hips twist experimentally under him, and then the redhead grinned. "Mermaid."

"Mer_man_," Roxas corrected firmly.

"Feels kinda like I fell off a boat. I guess it's a reenactment?" Axel asked, gently depositing Roxas on the sand and rising to look out at the waves. His lip curled, and Roxas knew it was because he _hated_ the ocean. Roxas didn't completely understand it, but he knew it had something to do with the way it all roiled together like fire that didn't burn. It seemed to frustrate Axel.

"Yeah, it is. Five hundred munny," Roxas ordered, pulling himself into a sitting position and holding out a hand.

Axel blinked at him.

"I just saved your ass from drowning. I want compensation."

"…You gotta be kidding me."

"Do you _like_ water? Because I'll drag you back out there."

Axel took several steps back until he was out of arm's reach. "And just how are you gonna catch me without legs?" he asked with a nasty little smirk.

Roxas growled low in his throat in the way that always made Axel almost piss himself. "Don't push your luck. I only _just_ decided to save you at the last possible second."

Something changed in Axel's expression then, and pain flickered across his eyes for an instant. "Plot's too linear for that. You…" He sighed. "You tried to kill me. Didn't you?"

_No. I watched you die,_ Roxas wanted to say, but it amounted to the same thing. And he would've done it, too—if the damn plot hadn't been so adamant. Axel had been out cold, it would have been painless…but no matter how many times Roxas watched him die, it never got easier. He'd lurked in a nearby cave stubbornly, waited, hoped it would just be over quick and they'd move on—until he just couldn't stand it anymore.

"I'm glad it happened."

Roxas's head snapped up and he stared at Axel.

"You were pissed," the redhead said, keeping his back to the beached merboy. "Real pissed. Dunno how you got it into your head that it was okay for you to be pissed, but you were, and maybe now that's a little worked out."

_Or maybe it was just the stupid plot and I had no choice._

There was a long silence. Roxas didn't want to think that he'd crumpled, that he'd weakened—to the plot or Axel, he didn't know anymore—but maybe he had…and maybe he hadn't. Either way, he wasn't sure what it all meant.

"We're…"

_Best friends, right?_

"We're fucked up, aren't we?"

Axel looked over his shoulder at him, but didn't say anything to contradict that.

"I mean…" Roxas sighed. "Besides all the shit we go through, all the drama all the fucking time, we're…we've got some stuff we have to work out, too. And I don't know how to do it, Axel."

"I don't either."

Roxas looked up as Axel sat down on a rock, hunching over and resting his arms on his thighs. "I'm sick of you, you're sick of me, and _we're_ sick of _this_. It's getting harder and harder to remember who I used to be, Rox. I don't know what to do anymore. I really don't."

The blond looked down in bitter disappointment. It often seemed like he was the one in charge, but actually, it was Axel's persistence that got him through most of the time. Now that persistence was waning, nerves were strung tight, he'd fought the goddam _script_ like a complete idiot…

"But there's one thing I do know, no matter what else happens."

Roxas glanced over in astonishment to see that Axel was shifting.

"I know that _Axel_," as he got down off the rock, "does _not_ give up," crunching through the sand to him, "on Roxas."

Roxas surprised himself by leaning into the hand that went out to cup his cheek, enjoying it while he could, because he knew. He knew before Axel even opened his mouth that the redhead was going to ruin the moment.

"So're you gonna sing to me, Mr. McCartney?"

A tail's worth of sand caught Axel in the face as the merboy slid with practiced ease back into the ocean and disappeared under the waves.

* * *

"So I was like, _got it memorized_? And Saix, you know Saix—he almost busted a vein trying not to go berserk right then and there…"

Roxas glared at the menu while Axel took advantage of his silence, blue eyes sifting through the dishes for something that wasn't seafood. Fishy friends or not, he'd eaten plenty of that while he was a merboy, and he was plenty tired of it.

"I can't help noticing, though," Axel said then, starting out a little loud so it would catch Roxas's attention, "that I never did get to hear you sing. What if I forget your voice and we ruin the plot?"

There was a sharp smack as the menu hit the table, and Roxas narrowed his eyes in a way that clearly said, If you forget my voice, I'll forget your _name_.

The redhead got the message and turned back to the menu with a defeated grunt.

There was an accepted form of communication common among silent protagonists, a language of looks, movements, and gestures, but Axel and Roxas knew each other so well that Roxas really didn't need to do all that unless he wanted to be specific. He returned his attention to the menu, flipping it up again so Axel couldn't see his face.

"What're you getting?"

Roxas made a complicated little hand signal above the menu.

"Onions?"

The same hand waved dismissively.

"Fries with that?"

This time the gesture looked distinctly offensive.

He heard Axel shift a moment and knew the redhead was looking over the wines. Roxas grimaced. He really wasn't feeling romantic, but they should probably do it to appease the plot.

"I was thinking the Merlot, you game?"

Roxas set the menu aside and shrugged as if to say, I'll go with it.

"Hey, yeah—we'll get the roast duck with a side of potatoes, hold the onions, and the shrimp platter with the New England clam chowder. And a bottle of Merlot, oldest you got," Axel added, handing the waiter the menus. As the waiter rattled off some obligatory dialogue and started for the kitchen, he turned his attention back to Roxas. "So. This one's a little more complex than we're used to with a reenactment, and we should probably figure out what we're doing with the characters."

Oh for nothing's _sake_. They could never just sit down and have a nice dinner without bringing characterization into it. Roxas took a sip of his water and folded his arms on the table, blue eyes intent.

"So far, _you're_ being standoffish and stingy, which means she's got you down pretty well—but honestly, Rox, I should've been the mermaid."

You've got the hair for it.

"Don't start with me. I'm being the nicer one, but _you're_ the one who needs a kiss before sundown, which means you can't be _literally_ kicking me out of your room like that."

Roxas lapsed into silence—the language—and gestured furiously, **The plot told me to do that!**

"Well, _don't_."

**You're the one who got anal about fighting the script!**

Axel seized him by the front of his shirt and dragged him almost across the table, silverware and plates clinking in protest. "If you _ever_ do that again, I will _castrate you_," he hissed, his nose only millimeters from Roxas's.

Servants immediately leapt to the rescue. "Is anything the matter, your Highness?" two of them practically chorused, hands flitting nervously as if they weren't sure whether to restrain Axel, remove Roxas, or do nothing at all.

"We're fine," Axel managed from between gritted teeth, releasing Roxas and sitting back. "Just bring us the fucking duck and the shrimp."

Roxas fumed in his seat a moment before motioning that **If it turns out to be Donald again, I'm gonna be sick for days.**

Axel actually laughed at that one, and Roxas figured it was the stress. He really shouldn't have brought up the script again, but whenever they were in a fight, Roxas threw every dart he had. Figuratively. (Usually.)

He heard Axel make a noise and looked up to see that someone else was coming into the dining room of the castle. His eyes almost bugged out at the sight of an unscripted, Riku-less Sora entering an Akuroku story—of his own volition, no less. This was _not_ part of the plan, if Roxas ran over the plot in his head, but now there were some dramatic changes taking place. He struggled and failed to growl as ironic veils fell over Sora's motivation in order to protect the plot. The veils were always in the way unless he himself was scripted, but Roxas could usually figure out Axel's motivation on his own, and other scripted characters were _very_ easy to read.

"Hey!" Sora said brightly to them, which was enough to put Roxas on his guard. "Mind if I sit?"

"Have at it," Axel said, but he was trying to sound natural and Roxas knew it.

And why? Because Sora's presence threatened both of them. If Axel and Roxas were giants in the world of yaoi, Sora and Riku were _gods_. Their pairing was more flexible and gave them more to work with, not to mention they had loads more experience, and the two were practically the forefathers of seduction in the Kingdom Hearts fandom. Riku could quite literally crook a finger and every member of the Organization would be his to command—to say nothing of the people _Sora_ could influence.

With Sora's motivation veiled, they _didn't know_. It was impossible to tell who he was after and whether or not he was supposed to get him in the end. If the plot got too loose or Sora pushed this too far, they could very easily screw everything up and have to start all over again. Roxas tried to just calm down, _breathe_—the guidelines were strung pretty tight, the plot would hold, and there was nothing he could do to change the outcome.

"Who's your friend, your Highness?" Sora asked (just as Roxas resisted asking the same thing), resting his elbows on the table and folding his hands under his chin. It was a very girlish pose, but Sora managed to make it look natural and masculine, and Roxas caught Axel eyeing him with interest.

_Oh. Shit._

"This is Bob," Axel said, holding out a hand to indicate Roxas. "Or that's what I'm calling him until I figure out what his name really is. He doesn't say much. Bob, this is Sora, my close friend."

"Nice to meet you," Sora said, grinning in that way that was pure Sora. "Where did you find him?" he asked, drawing a little closer to Axel than Roxas was really comfortable with.

"Out by the beach," the redhead said matter-of-factly, trying to avoid his friend's eyes. "Completely naked. Not too happy about it, either," he added in a mutter. His eyes suddenly flickered to Sora's hand, and Roxas couldn't see what it was doing, but he knew it was enough to get Axel's imagination going.

Sora made a good other. But Sora could also be a very, very _bad_ other.

His particular kind of seduction worked through little, little things. Roxas hadn't seen it much—the Sora he worked with was almost always inexperienced and clumsy—but Axel described it as "Little sexplosions in your head." They were things like right now, where he was holding a soupspoon to his lips and frozen in thought. Both Axel and Roxas were waiting for that pinkish tongue to lick that spoon, they _knew_ it was coming—but it didn't, and somehow the fact that it _didn't_ was even more arousing and mysterious than if it _had_.

Roxas had a theory. They saw so much of these things from day to day that they could predict them. They expected things to happen a certain way, and when things didn't, when they fell incredibly far from the mark—_that's_ what caused the boys to sit up and pay attention. It was like the blurry line between "innocent" and "_interesting_" had gotten heaved backward.

_When everything is the same, you look for the differences._

The blond tore his eyes from the sight with difficulty as Sora lowered the spoon. Sex with an experienced Sora _had_ to be mind-blowing—it was probably a law of fanfiction or something. But the Keymaster rarely had any of that experience at his command in fics.

"So I was thinking," Sora said, twirling the spoon between his fingers like a bored kid with a pencil, "that we could go out in the dingy. The weather's supposed to be pretty good out on the lagoon, I guess. Oh—and we could catch some of those _massive_ blowfish!"

Axel chuckled. "They're only massive because you always irritate them, Sora."

"Fine, but what do you think?" Sora asked, eyes bright. "You could bring your friend," he added. Maybe it was Roxas's imagination, but it seemed like Sora had stressed the word _friend_.

All right, so the plot was making him say that and he knew for a _fact_ that Sora had stressed the word _friend_.

The redhead started to reply to that, but instead he let out a choked little sound and looked down. Roxas looked too, and his lips parted in surprise. The narrative would have the readers believe that "Sora put his hand on Axel's," but in reality it was hovering _just over_ Axel's, just close enough that he could feel the heat but not close enough for physical contact. As Roxas watched, his _extremely bad_ other curved his index finger downward and just _barely_ caressed one of the fine hairs that were now standing on end.

Sora had Axel thoroughly entranced.

Roxas's jaw clenched and he felt a flash of jealousy, but he knew he couldn't say anything in silence—Sora would just ignore it, and Axel wouldn't be allowed to respond (if he could even formulate words at this point).

Axel got passed around. It was a fact of life. Roxas got passed around, too. But Roxas had been with Axel long enough to regard the man as _his_, and Roxas got very possessive with his _things_—particularly when they tended to end up in Sora's hands like they _did_.

_I'm DIFFERENT from him… _He closed his eyes against a memory that would always be a part of him. Axel's death had been torture enough on its own, but for that to be _Sora's_ moment—for _Sora_ to be the last one he ever saw…

_**You make me feel…the same…**_

There was enough betrayal in those words to break a heart that never was.

* * *

Axel was comfortable enough, Roxas decided. He didn't really feel like lying against the redhead on the beach right about then, but the story was finally over and the fic was about to end. Or at least a chapter, he surmised—this one just didn't seem to get _finished_.

"You're _wet_," Axel informed him, nuzzling his chin into Roxas's hair, "and you're _scaly_ and _sandy_ and you smell like _fish_, but I love you anyway."

"Says you."

"Yeah, says me," Axel shot back, looking offended. "Since when do I tell lies?"

"Since Oblivion, you back-stabbing double-crosser, and you don't have a _heart_."

"Then I love you with all my appendix."

"Your _what_?"

"It has an X in it, all right?"

Roxas leaned back and blew a raspberry at him. Axel popped him in the nose in response and he stopped, shifting to get comfortable and watching the waves again. Sora turned out to be the villain, even though Roxas could have sworn Maleficent supposed to star as Ursula this fic, and everything had gotten nicely resolved. If a bit clichéd.

Axel sighed dramatically. "So we're about to be parted…_for life_," he moaned out, squeezing Roxas close.

"Please. Dad'll be along in a minute to give me legs." Roxas wriggled free and fell silent for a moment, and when Axel didn't say anything more, he looked down. "Do you…have you figured out what to do?"

"Come again?"

Roxas glared at the innuendo and started doodling in the wet sand. "At the beginning of the chapter you said you didn't know what to do," he said. "Have you figured that part out yet?"

For a few moments, Axel didn't say anything and Roxas didn't press him. "We do what we _can_ do," he said finally. "We keep going, and we get what we can out of it. We can't do anything else." He scoffed. "It seems like I keep saying that over and over again."

Roxas smirked. "I guess that would make sense. We do a _lot_ of things over and over again."

"Hn. You never _did_ sing to me, you know," Axel reminded him, jostling him roughly.

"What? You're into McCartney?"

"Hell yeah!" Axel hesitated. "Well. _Paul_ McCartney, but still."

"And you say Quinton Flynn hasn't rubbed off on you."

"He hasn't. I _hate_ noodles."

Roxas rolled his eyes, but then he squirmed with embarrassment. "You…do you really want me to sing?"

Axel didn't answer that.

After a minute, Roxas drew away from him and discovered that Axel was actually _blushing_. It was a genuine blush, too—or as genuine as it got for a Nobody—and it made his jaw drop. "Axel?"

"_What_?" Axel demanded irritably, balling himself up and glaring at the ocean. "It's not a weird thing to want when your lover has a decent singing voice!"

This time Roxas blushed, and _oh_, it was sweet. It was sugar cotton candy soap opera diabetes _chloroform_ sweet, but somehow not quite enough to be sickening. To Axel's astonishment, Roxas sat up straighter, breathed in—_Diaphragm, not the lungs_—and raised his voice in song (shakily at first, but stronger as he went on). To anyone else who might have been listening in, it would have sounded like Jesse McCartney was singing Strawberry Fields for one reason or another, but all Axel heard was Roxas.

He started to join in, too, once or twice—but Axel didn't seem to want to block out Roxas's voice, so after a little while he just mouthed the words along with him. By the end of it, Axel was running a loving hand down Roxas's jaw. "You are _amazing_ to me," he whispered, and granted him a chaste kiss.

It was small.

It was perfect.

It was _enough_.

They let out simultaneous gasps at the sudden jolt, each of them convulsing inward as if someone had slammed him in the abdomen with a metal bat. "The lust!" Axel realized. "The fucking _lust_ is kicking in!"

And at exactly the wrong moment. Roxas wrenched away from Axel, whose embrace was suddenly desperate and passionate, and landed on his stomach in the sand. The redhead was on top of him in an instant and Roxas let out a scream of pure _denial_, almost crying with frustration as his fingers curled into the wet sand. He was still in merboy form, but that wouldn't fucking _matter_ in a minute when Axel got to the flaps that hid penis and ass respectively.

There was a sudden warmth along his hips that told him his be-scaled father had come swimming in to save the day and turn him human. Well, _perfect_. At least as a merboy there was a squick boundary, but now that was gone, and he could hear Axel removing his belt. The blond was on his hands and knees now, trembling all over as _Roxas_ tried to run and the lust running through his veins like _poison_ held him still.

"Don't fight me," Axel murmured in his ear, placing a hand on Roxas's bare chest and slowly sliding it down—_no_! If he got _there_, it was all over!

"Axel, fight this," Roxas got out between impassioned pants. "Fight this for me…please…"

Axel's hand stopped at his abdomen and Roxas could feel it trembling as two equal and opposite forces acted on it. "This is crazy, Rox," Axel whispered. "This is our moment. This is our _day_. I don't even want to think about what'll happen to us if we resist this."

"Try!" Roxas ordered sharply. "We can _beat this_, Axel! I know we can!"

But it was _hard_…it was like fighting a magnet. Roxas lifted a hand to crawl forward and the pressure on it doubled, sending it backwards. He only just recovered in time to stop it a few inches below his starting point…

"This is…_impossible_," Axel grunted from behind him.

"You wiped out half the Organization," Roxas got out, struggling just to move. "And I finished the job. We can stop ourselves from having _sex_, goddammit!"

"_Fuck this_!" Axel shouted like a war cry, obviously trying to rally them both—but instead they slid sharply towards one another.

"Don't say fuck."

"Okay yeah _bad_."

It was _so hard_, though, and Roxas thought bitterly about giving it up and just letting it run its course.

_No. Axel does NOT give up on Roxas, and Roxas will NOT give up on Axel._

"This is just the plot at work! The plot means _nothing_! We are the _characters_!" He was gaining ground now, if he could just get far enough away…

"_They_ don't…goddam…control us!" Axel got out between grunts and gasps of effort. "_We_…control…_THEM_!"

_POP_

Suddenly Roxas could move, and he scrambled up and away down the beach. He didn't stop until he was several feet away and safely barricaded behind a rock. It was a long, terrifying moment before he got up the nerve to look up over it, and he saw Axel huddled by one farther up the beach.

Blue eyes met green.

The first two genuine smiles in weeks appeared on two unmolested faces.

_We did it._

There was no need for words, only for laughter and running and grabbing and squeezing; for it not to matter that Roxas was naked and sandy and fishy and Axel's clothes were half-off and sopping wet; for two men to be madly in love with each other without screwing like rabbits, and for that to be okay.

* * *

Author's Note: Characters are thinking, dreaming _people _just like you or me, and if you let them, they will _live_.

SEXX0RZ HAZ A TYME AND PLAYCE.


	6. If love is surrender, whose war is it?

**HAY GUYS SRY 4 THA DALAY, KOLEJ IS HARD D8 (plus I had to get over my reluctance to post this chapter. I haven't, but it's here, so...)**

* * *

Axel came creeping out of a warm, comfy dream, only slightly surprised to find he was lying in a warm, comfy bed and not a wet beach or hard broom closet floor. It wasn't anywhere near new for Axel to find himself in a bed at any hour of any day, but he couldn't really remember how he got there.

That's right, they'd spent a couple hours out on the beach, just enjoying each other's company for the hell of it the first time in _months_—and then they'd dropped off to sleep in a house that popped up out of the ground for the sake of the plot. Speaking of which, he'd _tried_ to get through to the plot, but there were ironic veils all over the place, which was annoying, and…Roxas?

He frowned, reaching out and patting up and down the other side of the bed before finally opening his eyes to find that Roxas wasn't there. There wasn't a shower running, either, and he was pretty sure they hadn't had sex last night—they'd beat the lust, for one, and for another Roxas had seemed kind of out of it…

There was a choked sound from the direction of the bathroom.

Axel sat up in a panic to find that Roxas was on his knees next to the toilet, dry-heaving into the bowl. He hesitated, blinking in utter astonishment. "Sounds like you hit the Merlot pretty hard after all," he got out, his voice still thick with sleep.

"Didn't touch the stuff."

Axel watched him for a moment, drawing a complete blank. "You sick?"

"I _wish_."

…

…

_Oh…FUCK._

Axel was on his feet in the next second, padding over to Roxas and catching his skinny body up by the arms. "C'mon, I need you back in the bed, you gotta take it easy…"

"I don't need your help!" Roxas protested, struggling, and he would have fallen if Axel hadn't gotten his arms under Roxas's.

"The last time," Axel grunted out, "you had a _baby_, you almost died. And the time before that, _you did_. Your body isn't built for this, Roxas."

"It's not built for sex with you, either, but I manage that!"

"_Let me_ get you in the _goddam bed_ before I send you back to la-la land," Axel growled. When he really needed Roxas to do something or be somewhere, his mantra was "conscious or not," and he occasionally had to go with "not."

And Roxas knew it. Axel felt him sag against him in defeat, and the taller Nobody walked him back to the bed. "_Don't_—gently…" he said tensely as Roxas went to just drop down onto it.

"You say that like I'll shatter into a million pieces," Roxas grumbled as he finally eased himself down.

_Sometimes I'm afraid you will._ "I'm worried for the kid, too, Rox," Axel reminded him. "I know it's gonna be hellspawn, but we don't wanna piss off the author…" Or at least Roxas hadn't. Until now.

There was an awkward silence. Normally Axel would ask outright, get loud and mad and indignant, but that just wasn't the way to go about it with Roxas if he really wanted results.

"I met with the author."

"Self-insert?"

"Minnie," Roxas muttered, and Axel twitched, reminded suddenly and passionately of that particular hatred. "She spoke through Minnie."

"What'd she say?"

"Usual stuff," Roxas said, not meeting his eyes. "She loves us, she's obsessed with us, yadda ya…"

"And?"

Blue eyes glared at him. "And what?"

"_Something_ got you riled up, don't give me this bullshit."

Roxas rolled his eyes and dropped his head back against the pillow. "And it hurts…to watch us do this."

Axel's eyes flamed and for a moment it felt like he was about to spontaneously combust.

_How DARE she._

"You hypocritical _bitch_," he snarled at the ceiling, his voice dripping with venom. "You fuck everything up, you put us through _hell_, and then you whine about how much _you're hurting_?"

"Axel…" He glanced over to see that Roxas was pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's a satire. You said so yourself. And that one reader thinks she's trying to make a point, so…" He lifted intense blue eyes to Axel's. "I thought it was time we spoke up, too."

The redhead ignored him and got up off the bed, still glaring upward and curling his lip. "How does that make you _different_?" he asked coldly.

"Axel, _don't_—"

(A/N: Let him talk.)

The sudden interruption seemed to startle Roxas, but Axel was still focused. He started to pace, sifting back through his memories for anything resembling…yes, here it was, he recognized those dashes. "I know you," he growled low in his throat. "I know what you did to me."

(A/N: I'm sorry.)

"Sorry doesn't _begin_ to cover it!" he exploded, stalking back and forth like a caged animal. "You put words in my mouth! Thoughts in my head! You put _lust_ in my _blood_ and turned me into something I couldn't even recognize! And now, because you can finally _hear_ me, because you're_ listening_ now—now you sit up there on your high horse and try to judge everybody else! What, so you think you're _special_ now? Huh? You think they'll look up to you? What a bunch of _crap_!" He shook his head, jade eyes blazing now. "You're no different from them! _You are_," he began, practically screaming now; "_the FUCKING SAME_!"

There was a long silence as that sunk in, and Roxas looked like he was waiting for the apocalypse to happen.

(A/N: I know that.)

Axel, still panting to regain his breath, let out a sound almost like a confused "hah?"

(A/N: I am exactly the same as everyone else here. There is no special experience that sets me apart, only time and practice. The fact that I can hear you now only supplements my ability to use you, because I _am_ using you, and nothing more. I love you. But, like every other writer, I love myself more—which is why I am willing to do whatever I must to you if it means I can experience the euphoria that is _writing_.

(I'm not looking to lead or condemn. I'm looking to _influence_. And I _am_ judging in the same way a tourist silently judges a gallery—discerning what I feel is good from what I feel is not—comparing these assertions to the general consensus—and finally, forming an _opinion_, and circulating it the only way I know how in a desperate attempt to change a fandom that cannot be changed. Watching a writer destroy your character is like watching a man trample a sapling, Axel. I can't do it. I won't. I refuse.

(So I'll conjure this simulation and try to be different _enough_ to make them _see_, as writers before me have made _me_ see, and you will suffer as you have continued to suffer at my hands. But perhaps one day I will improve enough that it will hurt less.)

Axel was silent for several moments, brooding. It was one thing for a character to talk to a writer and work her strings—that was easy, if she listened—but it was another for a writer to speak to a character and make him understand. "Bust," he sighed finally, scratching his head. "The chicks you're trying to reach are never gonna understand all that garbage."

(A/N: …Yeah, I guess not. But this fic is pretty much for the people who get pissed at _those_ people by now, anyway. And now I have a request.)

The redhead glared at the place she was most likely to inhabit, which he figured was hovering just above his head. "You're in no position to do that," he grumbled from between gritted teeth.

"What do you want?" Roxas wanted to know, but he sounded more desperate than resigned.

(A/N: I've gone easy on you, and this story has been without a villain for _far_ too long.)

A weight dropped in Axel's stomach, and suddenly the windows and doors were slamming erratically and an icy wind was whirling throughout the house. Roxas flattened himself to the bed as the redhead stumbled, catching himself with his hands on the bedpost and bracing himself against the sudden waves of wind that howled against him and threatened to sweep him out the open window.

_**.**__**:(A/N: Fight me. Fight like you've never fought before, and defeat me. Prove once and for all that the Character is both the key to Plot and the ultimate manifestation of Writing in its purest form.):**__**.**_

Axel pressed his head into the mattress and clung with all his might, hearing Roxas topple off the bed and into the wall. He checked back once to make sure the blond wasn't harmed, but didn't dare let go—and then he felt it more than saw it as a dark smile curled around the edges of the text. For an instant it felt like something was squeezing his mind into a _matchbox_—

(A/N: Oh. And a little fluff now and again wouldn't hurt, either. Thanks, Axelbabe!)

And it was over as suddenly as it had started. Axel patted his face back into feeling, finding a crushed bug under his eye, and glowered with a passion at the sky outside the open window.

"_Melodramatic_ _BITCH_!"

* * *

It was several months later, and Roxas was rocking a little, struggling to get his swollen body up and into Axel's arms. "_Ow_—"

"Sorry. I gotcha, I gotcha," Axel assured him quietly as Roxas clung to him and stumbled uncertainly. Roxas turned his head to one side and Axel could hear him making little pained gasps.

"This _hurts_…"

"Do you want me to carry you?"

"No."

"Then stop complaining."

Roxas glared up at him. They were both vexed with each other, as they usually got when one of them had a forbidden baby ensconced between his balls and his prostate, and months of childish fighting and crippling bouts of angst had done nothing to improve their relationship.

Axel helped him into his clothes, thinking as he usually did that Roxas looked like a pale, sand-colored egg with skinny arms and legs trying desperately to keep itself from cracking against the floor. But he'd purposely dropped Roxas earlier that month and the egg hadn't cracked. (And then Roxas had stabbed him in the leg with a fork a couple days later, so they were even.)

"_God_ you're heavy," Axel muttered when Roxas leaned on him to get down the stairs.

"Do you wanna have this thing?"

Axel scoffed. "I'd handle it better."

"Oh, right, I forgot about your _curves_," Roxas spat waspishly.

Maybe if Axel threw him down the stairs he'd miscarry.

There were two factors that made Axel say that, though, and one of them was his size. Being past puberty and as tall as he was made babies a breeze—compared to Roxas's almost bedridden suffering, at least—to say nothing of a particularly embarrassing but necessary part of his anatomy.

It had taken years, but Axel had finally accepted his hips.

And now Roxas was dragging that shit up again and Axel wanted to shake him. "I better check under your balls, you might be getting a vagina down there," he snarled, jerking the boy a little roughly into the living room. "It'd explain the PMS."

"Oh ha ha, very nice—like I haven't heard _that_ one a million ti—_gnh_!" Roxas groaned fiercely as Axel deposited him none-too-gently on the couch. "What the fuck is your problem? You're gonna kill it like that other time!"

"_You're_ the one who died on it!"

"Yeah, because_ you shoved me in front of a bus_!"

"That's _not_ the time I'm talking about and the plot was supposed to save you!"

"You snapped three of the guidelines! It couldn't do anything!"

"Do you want me to do it again?"

"Okay, yeah, uh-huh—_kill_ me!" Roxas shouted after him as Axel stormed into the kitchen. "That'll fix everything!"

Axel abruptly started yanking things out to make omelets, hoping both that Roxas wasn't craving those chocolate pickle chips the way he did when he was pregnant and that Axel had the self-control to melt the cheese the way Roxas liked as always. He heard the TV click on and knew Roxas was stewing—Roxas always turned on the TV to get his mind off of things, but it never worked, and Axel would come out in a minute with breakfast to find him glaring at Scrubs like every single character had done something to him personally.

Which gave him time, so Axel started melting the butter and rested his head against the wall for a minute just to stop and _think_. It wasn't going well, that much was certain—but mpreg _never_ went well, even when it was Axel having the kid (bit of a happy rarity as it was). Not only did they have to put up with each other and all the drama there, but the baby itself took a heavy toll and released all kinds of hormones to screw with its father's brain.

But it would end eventually and things would go back to normal between them—Axel had to believe that, just like he had to believe that good fics would still come along and good authors still had their ears pricked for his voice.

They had basically decided that their current author was completely off her head, forgone all dreams of taking over _anything_, and agreed that they were going to have the baby and get out of the fic as soon as possible. Considering that no biological abomination of a hole was opening up between Roxas's legs, they were probably going to have to pull a Cesarean again. Axel groaned and rolled his eyes at the thought. One time they hit five mpregs in a row, and each narrative consistently forgot to mention Roxas's "smooth chest and abdomen," so he'd had scars crisscrossing his stomach for about three years.

The butter was melted, so Axel went about cracking the eggs and putting the bacon on the fire and studiously ignoring the cheddar he should probably have been chopping up about then. Contrary to popular belief, Axel was actually pretty good in the kitchen as long as it was an _electric_ stove he was working with—and he still didn't know a lot of recipes, but Roxas generally liked what he made, and that was enough.

So he finished putting the things together, added tomatoes to his and carefully applied some concentrated heat to Roxas's until the cheese was properly melted, and backed against the door out of the kitchen with plates in hand. "Chow, kid," he said a little shortly—just enough to suggest that he was vexed without being full on mad.

Then he caught sight of Roxas and almost dropped the omelets. Instead he shoved them onto a random table, not really caring if they survived, and rushed to his best friend's side. "You all right? What's the matter?"

Roxas's back was arched and his mouth was open in a pained grimace. "Y-yeah—little—_foot_—!" he got out between Axel's anxious questions.

"All right, up—" And Axel started to pull him up, but Roxas let out a little gasp and shook his head.

"No no—_down_, i-it's getting worse…" Roxas grimaced sharply, the victim of a parasite that his young male body was almost incapable of supporting. "Little fucker's got its _toe_ in my _kidney_!"

"All right, all right, hang on," Axel said, positioning a finger at Roxas's belly button and concentrating.

"OW! What'd you do?"

"Nothing."

"You did _something_! That hurt!"

"I just poked it." _With fire._

"You can't do shit like that to a baby! You might mess it up!"  
"Calm down, it was _nothing_, it won't even leave a mark." _Much._

Roxas was still glaring at him, but the kid had obviously squirmed back into a place where it wasn't pressing on anything, so he relaxed and dropped his head back. "I…_hate_," he got out, panting, "this fic."

"Amen to _that_," Axel muttered, going back for their breakfast. Roxas's had gotten squished under Axel's plate, but they hadn't fallen over. "We just gotta hope that you shit that thing and it'll be over."

Roxas frowned at his omelet in a way that told Axel he was about to start up an argument. "Where're the pickle chips?"

"Don't push your luck."

There was a silence as they both ate and tried to pay attention to the TV.

Roxas looked up sharply, his face totally bemused. "Fireplace."

Axel blinked at him. "What?"

The blond could only croak, "_Owl_."

There was an unsettling "_Whoo_!" from right above Axel's head, and then a pair of bananas and an owl turd landed on his plate. He stared at this complete ruination of a perfectly good breakfast and proceeded to scream in frustration for one solid minute. Then his head snapped up and he fried the sonuvabitch responsible.

"Roast owl," Roxas said numbly. He still looked absolutely spooked out of his mind.

"_Cute_," Axel snarled at him, and picked up one of the bananas gingerly, careful not to touch the stuff along the side. "What're we supposed to do with these?"

Roxas didn't seem capable of formulating words, so Axel jabbed him in the arm with it. "Maybe I'm supposed to fuck you with them."

At that, the blond suddenly glared at him, and Axel knew better than to pursue that train of thought no matter how kinky it seemed at the time. Screwing was pretty much out of the question when Roxas was pregnant, unless the fic demanded it and they had to improvise.

So, with nothing better to do, Axel started peeling the thing, in case it was a Magic Vibrating Fruit Dildo that would "tell them the way." Stranger things had happened.

But it turned out that there were words written along the inside of the peel, smudged a little but still mostly legible. With more than a little annoyance, he stripped the peel from around it and pieced the message together. There was a flicker of a smile on his lips when he recognized the signature.

_Roxas: I've only ever used you in one fic before. You may or may not recall Death Notes and Nobodies. And yes, Axel was with you. In that fic you two pretty much remained friends since I didn't have the heart to write you together... It would have been too weird to the main idea of the story. I just want to know what kind of fic you'd be ok with if I wrote you in. Any particular requests? Hit me with what you got._

"Here."

"Mmh?"

"MAEL."

Roxas read over it while Axel tugged off the other peel with a care that surprised even himself. Maybe he was just tired of getting angry at these things. "Death Notes," the blond said finally, and shook his head. "There've been too many of those to narrow it down."

"You remember the one where I raped Light?"

"No."

"There was one where I raped Light. Scary fic."

"Did he kill you?"

"You remember what I told you about getting dipped in acid?"

"Oh."

_Axel: Admittedly I'm another fan. I've dreamed of a pair up with you. _(Axel winced sharply and made a face.)_ Purely innocence, I assure you. The reasons being how amazingly different a character you are, and how easy it is to like you. I'll ask you the same question: Any requests for a fic I could possibly oblige you with?_

The redhead was only half aware of Roxas leaning back with a sigh and muttering, "Now she's done it."

He got up to pace, his mind racing—so many possibilities! And if he wasn't shackled to Roxas, he could…well, there was so much out there! "The Bahamas!" he shouted. "A vacation! I want to be a famous movie star—no, a skater! Like Tony Hawk! And go on vacation in the Bahamas and go on a cruise and visit ancient Greece and see the Swiss Alps and go to a nudist beach and _become a serial killer_!" His eyes were dancing now.

"You've _been_ a serial killer."

"Shut up. I think that'd be really cool—and maybe even go to jail! I don't think I've ever been there before…well, not for a while. But not get raped, that'd suck, I hate getting raped. And I want to beat Luxord at poker!"

"You'll never do that." Roxas was looking over his note again carefully. "It's probably not a good idea to go overboard on this, either, you'll scare her off."

Axel glared back at him. "All right, what's your big idea, then? She asked you, too."

Roxas considered that for a long moment, and Axel got restless. The boy was such a thinker—not that Axel wasn't, with all the excitement during the days of Chain of Memories, but at least he was quicker about it. "I miss Namine," Roxas whispered finally. "I don't care if we get together or not, that's not important. But I haven't seen her…_real_ lately. It's been so fake…"

"You're supposed to be used to fake."

"I'll never get used to _this_ kind."

There was a long silence. Roxas set his note down and went back to watching TV, but the taller Nobody felt an explosion building inside as he sat back down and tried to concentrate on the show.

Axel suddenly threw the banana peel back against his plate in frustration. "What the fuck did that bitch even mean, _fight her_? We can't do that! Even if we have _some_ influence, she's the _writer_! Every aspect of _everything_ has to get by her first!" And he well remembered the first and last time he fought off a script—he'd forgotten Roxas's favorite kind of ice cream, which shouldn't have even been _possible_, for about seven whole days.

Roxas seemed to be considering that, sourly watching J.D. lose an argument about what effect a baby had on a doctor's career. "Axel, I don't think she's gonna let us go," he said finally, muting it and trying to forget about babies and unintentionally relevant television.

"The hell does _that_ mean?" Axel wanted to know. He looked annoyed that Roxas was seeing it this way, but it also could've been because he was missing Dr. Cox's usual iconoclasm.

"She's trying to make a point, and she's using us to do it," Roxas summarized with a frown. "And she's just told us she's going all out now. Plus she's the villain, and villains don't always lose in these things. You're kind of a prime example."

Axel was about to argue about that—_I'm a tragic martyr, not a villain, dammit_—but something occurred to him and he hesitated. "So what's gonna happen to us?"

"If we don't do something about it, my guess is whatever sucks the most."

Axel glared at the TV like he wanted it to explode. "So we're trying to beat something that has total control over us. How do we fight a war we can't win?"

Roxas ruminated over that for a moment. "We have to get help from something she _doesn't_ control."

Axel rolled his eyes heavenward. "_Like_?"

Blue eyes wandered to the banana peels. "The readers."

The redhead shot his best friend a look of awe and horror. "You serious?"

Roxas nodded. "They know how these things work. Maybe they've come up with ways around clichés like 'Sues and crackfics and the angsty types, and we're gonna need all the help we can get. Even if they can't really advise us, if we could just get their support, we might be able to make her back down." He bit his lip. "But…I have no idea how to do that."

Axel considered that. "You think we could bribe them with sex?"

"That could work, but it'd defeat the purpose."

The redhead frowned. For a moment he scanned the room, trying to find something that might interest the readers. His eyes landed on Roxas's swollen stomach. "We could give them the baby," he said finally.

"It's going to be a 'Sue, not a baby. But no, I don't think we can manage that."

"We could cut it up and pass it around in parts."

"Thanks for ruining my breakfast, and you're overlooking the fact that we're in separate _realities_," Roxas pointed out, stabbing the now useless omelet with his fork.

Axel muttered something about breakfast being _already_ ruined and glared back at the TV. "What if we offer them cookies and just never deliver?" he asked suddenly, hitting upon a stroke of genius. "I've seen tons of authors do that!"

Roxas glared at him. "Are you even _aware_ that they are reading this _right now_?"

The taller Nobody let out an annoyed sound and dropped his head forward. "Could they just do it out of _sympathy_, maybe? After all the shit we've been through?"

"_Doubt_."

Axel sighed, giving up. "Fine. But if we're going to fight the writer, we've got to start with _this_," Axel said firmly, jabbing Roxas's stomach. "Abort it," he added sharply when Roxas gave him an uncomprehending look. "That's the one thing that would never happen in an mpreg fic unless it was _absolutely_ necessary."

Roxas threw up his hands. "Well _there goes _the pro-life fanbase."

* * *

Author's Note (i.e. Transmission from Evil Goddess Headquarters): Awright, here's where I shirk my responsibilities and entrust the plot to you. They've been getting help from me, but now they won't. They need support from you, because without it, they will fail. Ain't a threat, either—that's a promise, and Kingdom Hearts characters are very good about keeping their promises.

Doesn't matter so much if you offer suggestions or just root for the guys; they just need to know you're on their side. (_If_ you are, bwahaha. Sorry, I'm not so good at this evil cackle stuff yet.)

Smoked, diced, and roasted pieces of the 'Suebaby will be served in the break room from nine to five Eastern Time next Monday.

PEENASIZ AR NAWT VAJINAS.

Creep-stats3, EXCELLENT questions! I don't know if I've got them answering in the right voices and for the right reasons, but the whole point of this is to get people to think outside the box, and your help is invaluable.


	7. The day you hoped would never come

_doodoodoo?  
_**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(9:58:57 AM): OMFG UR SN XD

…

_doodoodoo_.  
**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:00:32 AM): What do you want?

_doodoodoo?  
_**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:00:50 AM): u, baby. :3

Roxas glared at the screen, hoping Axel could feel his eyes, and then shifted his attention to the onomatopoeia to tell them they'd made their point and they could go. One of them made a disappointed little _doodoodoo_, and Roxas was filled with an absurd desire to bite it.

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:02:03 AM): This fic can't decide what it is. Now its starting to feel cracky.

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:02:34 AM): that wuold explain the thing w/ the baby.

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:02:52 AM): Don't start

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:03:01 AM): im over it

Roxas sincerely hoped so. After being completely unable to find a doctor who would perform the abortion (Roxas had expected it since they were third trimester, but apparently it was the fact that they were "so obviously in love" and "just a little scared of such a big change" that turned the doctors off), they'd settled for farting the kid into life and badfic simultaneously, with Axel slipping Roxas potions whenever the nurses weren't looking. Roxas came to a few hours after the fact and dimly registered that Axel was holding their newborn at arm's length, looking at it like it was poisonous.

"He's got your eyes," Roxas had pointed out weakly.

"…He's _green_."

Roxas had frowned, blinked, and tried to remember why that was bad again.

"Our baby is _green_. The _color_. All. Over. Him."

Still unable to recognize this as a problem, Roxas had afforded a sleepy "Mmmmh."

"Did you have sex with…with some_thing_ besides me?"

Roxas had sighed. "_No_, Axel." And he'd pulled the pillow over his head to go to sleep.

The Roxas of now was significantly deflated compared to the Roxas of then, and also fairly intent on getting through to FanFiction. He growled at a bright pink window as it popped up and asked for the fifty-millionth in a set of never-ending passcodes.

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:05:21 AM): Theres blocks on everything.

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:05:40 AM): i kno, sucktopia

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:05:59 AM): Where aer you?

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:06:11 AM): _Invalid passcode for CA4. 3 tries remaining._

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:06:57 AM): passcode's 8396.

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:07:02 AM): oright

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:07:25 AM): If you forget yours I'm not telling you what it is.

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:07:51 AM): I KNO MINE SHUTUP

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:08:11 AM): "Know."

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:08:13 AM): I GOTS IT MEMORIZED

…

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:09:21 AM): english is stupid.

Roxas went back to ignoring him and tried to focus on the blinding pink text box reading, _Enter UserID_. "I don't know the stupid user ID," he muttered. On a whim, he typed in 12345678910111213, and the screen blinked green. "Figures."

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:10:42 AM): what dow e do for larxene? 5196?

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:12:33 AM): Forget it. I'm in.

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:12:50 AM): ORLY

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:12:58 AM): SEND PLZ

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:13:08 AM): h/o

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:13:13 AM): URL?

…

"Oh hell _no_."

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:14:13 AM): YO

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:15:58 AM): roxas

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:16:22 AM): YT?

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:16:49 AM): they're not showing up.

…

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:17:31 AM): SRSLY

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:17:35 AM): yeah

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:17:53 AM): WTF WHY

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:18:13 AM): I dont the hell know

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:18:30 AM): THE NEXT TIME I SE ETHAT AUHTORESS IM GOIN 2 BURN HER TITS OFF

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:19:15 AM): OMG

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:19:35 AM): what?

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:20:25 AM): this is a clishe. i jus tsaid omg 4 fucks sake

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:20:32 AM): Cliche.

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:20:58 AM): JESUS U AN SPELLING

**SeventhPrincess **(10:21:07 AM): I'm being blackmailed into saying hello.

Roxas squinted at the new username that had popped up from nowhere. There had been no message about an unknown user, nor a chatroom invite, yet now there were three people on one line. _Huh._

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:21:58 AM): well hey then

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:22:12 AM): Kairi?

…

…

**SeventhPrincess **(10:25:34 AM): SHE DID THAT ON FUCKING PURPOSE.

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:25:47 AM): LOL

**KeybladeKy00tie **(10:26:36 AM): wait, huh?

**SeventhPrincess **(10:27:17 AM): I don't have to stand for this. One word to anyone and YOU WILL DIE.

_SeventhPrincess signed off at 10:27:22 AM._

_SeventhPrincess is offline and will receive your IMs when signing back in._

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:27:58 AM): LMAO

**fLuRrYoFdAnCiNgFlAmEsX3 **(10:28:04 AM): THAT WAS SAIX

Roxas had to read those words over a few times before the full meaning hit him, and then he burst into a storm of snickers.

* * *

In the end, screaming at, kicking, and (in Axel's case) burninating the computer did little to help the situation, and so they grudgingly decided to go through with the more dangerous (but admittedly easier) task of climbing up to the margin to get to the blue _27_. This, however, necessitated a change of environment, since the margin was significantly easier to access from the canon world—so they picked the World that Never Was. Roxas figured it was some sort of plot point and dealt with it accordingly. Axel shivered and muttered about rain and slippery leather cloaks and if Roxas ran off on him so help him _god_.

"This is fucking _nuts. _If we get caught above the margin, we could get _erased,_" he grumbled from below. His height came in handy, after all, and it tended to work out for the both of them; Axel got to hug Roxas's legs to his chest and rest his cheek against Roxas's hip and Roxas got to do whatever crazy shit he had to.

Which was, in this case, fumbling for the reviews. "Yeah, because that's a real danger. She let us skip out on the sex already, I'm not worried about getting squelched." Even though he was _very_ worried about getting squelched and particularly didn't like the idea of getting dipped in acid. It seemed like he'd narrowly avoided that some time ago, or maybe that had been Namine.

Axel shifted and Roxas wavered, missing the reviews by a full inch. "This is why you fight the script and use _walls_ for _floors_," the redhead continued stubbornly. "You have _no_ regard for consequences."

"Walls tend to have really good traction when you're out to kill someone, and you're not one to talk about consequences."

"At least I'm _careful_!"

"Careful enough to die because of a bunch of Dusks?"

Roxas got punched in the butt. Hard. And it hurt, because a baby had come out of there earlier. His _eyes_ actually watered, and Roxas couldn't even remember the last time they'd done that on their own on account of physical pain. He growled low in his throat. "You hit me again and I'm going to do something _so fucking horrible_ to you…"

Axel hit him again.

Roxas _snapped_.

Seized with a thousand hurts, a thousand hates, and a thousand years of loving and dreaming and fighting and fucking and hoping and _repeating_, Roxas saw everything Axel disappear into a haze of red and suddenly they were both on the ground in a writhing mass of black. Roxas wasn't too sure what was even happening—there was just hate and pain and blood and would Axel just _die_ already—!

They broke away and got to their feet, panting and glaring at each other with as much hatred as heartless beings could muster. Axel's chakrams were there in a burst of flame, which told Roxas that this had just escalated from a _fight_ to a fucking _war_. "If that's the way you want it," he snarled, drawing his Keyblades. Roxas would win, as usual, and maybe he really would kill Axel this time, and maybe the very act would destroy him, and maybe there really wouldn't be anyone left to miss him this time.

But maybe Roxas didn't care about that anymore.

Axel leapt at him—because Axel _always_ leapt, never ran in battle—and Roxas could tell he was being careful at first, trying to see if Roxas was serious. A knee to the gut and a Keyblade to the back was enough to let him know, and then a fiery gash along Roxas's side told him Axel was being serious, too.

Roxas got a precious chance to recover, because Axel suddenly shuddered with pain (delayed reaction from that hit to the back, Roxas figured). The blond took full advantage of it and darted back at his perpetual lover, Keyblades out and face dark with intent. He saw it when Axel's eyes flashed, when the chakrams went spinning off uselessly in opposite directions, when suddenly Axel's arms were around him and the man was somehow still alive—

"I love you."

If Roxas hadn't been too astonished to move, his best friend probably would have died right there. As it was, he raised a Keyblade in preparation to destroy Axel's spinal cord. "Axel, I'm going to kill you in a minute. Let go of me."

"No. I love you, Roxas."

The blond groaned. Axel could be more stubborn than _Riku_ sometimes. "I'm serious. Let go of me or you will _die_."

Axel only pulled tighter. "I w-want to be with you, Roxas. That's all I want…that's all I ever…"

Something about his voice finally rang false, and Roxas dropped both Keyblades, shoving Axel away from him. One look at those normally bright jade eyes was enough to confirm his fears. _He's been scripted._

The taller Nobody looked awful. His makeup was running, he was drawing in on himself, and his lower lip was trembling like a wet noodle. He sniffed once, shooting Roxas a look like a kicked puppy, and suddenly made for him. "Roxa—!"

"_No_."

A boot to the face was enough to deter him.

Axel let out a piercing wail like a dying baby and burst into tears. "You don't _luh-huv meeheeheeeee_!" he lamented, dropping to the ground and curling up into a ball of sobs and broken dreams. "All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, Roksa—Rok—sass…" His face screwed up, letting a tiny sobbing squeak get past his parted lips. "And now you _hate me_! Nothing's worth it anymore!"

Roxas rolled his eyes. At this rate, Axel was going to kill _himself_. But with all the drama they were going through, Roxas _really_ didn't want to have an emo attack on top of it. Knowing in his heart (that didn't exist) that he was going to regret this, Roxas approached the crying, rocking bundle that was somehow Axel. "Hey."

"_What_." Axel sniffed brokenly. "Go away. You—you broke my heart, you m-motherfucker!"

Roxas couldn't resist. "You don't _have one_."

Axel cried about that until it made Roxas annoyed that someone without a heart could get this emotional. "No! I don't! This half-life isn't worth living!"

"Shut up. I love you."

Axel perked up. "Really?"

"No."

"I _hate everything_! Why can't I just _die_!"

It could have gone on forever, and Roxas was pretty sure he was going to laugh himself into an early grave. Even if Axel managed to kill himself now, that had been so totally worth it—but Roxas had to stop fooling around. "I was kidding," he said simply once he caught his breath again, kneeling at Axel's side. "I really do love you. But I need you to do something for me. To…er, prove your love," he added vaguely.

The taller Nobody looked up, his eyes dancing with childlike mirth. "Okay!"

"Climb up to the margin there and bring me back the reviews."

Dead jade eyes suddenly turned fearful. "Um…Roxas, I don't think we're supposed to do that…"

Roxas turned away dramatically and buried his face in his hands. "_You don't love me_."

Axel blanched. "Yes I do! I'm going, Roxas! See? I love you! I do!" he called behind him as he scampered back up the narrative to the margin and stretched up outside the page. Roxas watched him closely—after all, he couldn't have anything happen to those reviews. Oh, and Axel was still in there somewhere, so it would suck a little if something happened to him, too.

He saw Axel's arm disappear into the numbers briefly, and then it withdrew with a handful of envelopes. The redhead shot a bright grin over his shoulder at Roxas and started to run back to him—

KZZZAAAAT

The sky spit a lightning bolt down to riddle Axel's system. Roxas thought he heard Larxene cackle, but that could've been the author. Either way, it siphoned off and left him blackened and wavering like a cartoon character. He coughed once and collapsed, the reviews fluttering down around him.

Roxas made damn sure that lightning wasn't coming back before carefully approaching the redhead, bending beside him on all fours. "Axel?"

Axel muttered some nasty words.

Satisfied that this constituted "alive," Roxas picked up the reviews and started sifting through them. Axel sat up as he did so and frowned, brushing himself off and grimacing. "Was I scripted just now?"

"Yeah. Apparently I broke your heart or something."

"Great," Axel muttered with an expression that didn't really communicate "great." "I gotta go remember. Or…" He hesitated. "Ah, hell. What's the point? They'll only do it again…"

Roxas put the reviews down and glared levelly at him. "Are you giving up on me?"

For an instant it looked like Axel was going to disagree, get up, and go remember, but suddenly he stiffened and met Roxas's gaze. "Why the hell shouldn't I? You gave up on _me_."

"When did I—!"

"You walked away and I never even _saw_ you again."

Roxas fell silent. _That_ betrayal cropping up again. For a pair of boys, they sure had a hard time letting stuff go. But two could play the blame game. "That's not even true," he hissed. "Struggle tournament—"

"That wasn't you."

"No," Roxas said quietly. "It wasn't. But it doesn't have to be, does it?"

"What in the _hell_—"

"It could be Sora, couldn't it?" the blond pressed, clenching his teeth. "He makes you feel the _same way_ I do. Just like with the others. Just like with everything. He could replace me and no one'd even notice." _No one would miss me._

"That's not—!"

"_Yes it is true_."

"_I'd_ noti—!"

"_No_, you _wouldn't_!"

Axel's jaw started working soundlessly, his hands running through his hair like he was ready to pull it out. "All right. All right. Can we let up on the angst? I'm seriously drowning in angst, here," he protested, wringing his hands out anxiously.

"You should've seen yourself two minutes ago," Roxas muttered.

"Look. I'm gonna go remember, and when I come back, we'll talk reviews," Axel said firmly, rising. "No more of this miss me, miss me not bullshit. I'd fucking miss you, alright?"

Roxas shrugged. "Yeah, okay."

"One of these days I'm gonna punch you in the schnozz and you're not gonna like it."

Axel stalked off then and Roxas let him go, sorting through the reviews behind him. The only thing that irked him was that the envelopes were only marked with screennames and sorting the reviews meant reading through each one. He put together three piles: praise, support, and advice. By the time Axel came back, he was just getting through with the last ones.

The redhead snorted when he saw them. "It's not even mail and it comes in envelopes, but nothing else does. Figures. Flames?" he asked, sitting cross-legged across from him. Axel was particularly fond of flames.

"None."

"What's this?"

"Praise."

Axel blinked and started flipping through them. "How'd she get so much praise? People usually hate this stuff." He stopped suddenly and grinned. "Choice. I like this one."

Roxas reached over to snatch it. "Good stroy right moar." He smirked wryly. "Wow."

"What've we got for advice?" Axel asked, indicating the other two piles.

"Couple of older ones from Creep Stats—here's one from Si—Sai?—Cygna-hime," Roxas said.

_Dear Roxas,_

_If the story won't let you get to a drugstore or competent medical professional (and, since this is fanfic, competent medical professionals are few and far between), tea made from the pennyroyal herb is a traditional abortifacient. Just, y'know, in case you might for some reason decide that you had a craving for some._

_Oh, and inducing writer's block and/or causing the writer to write herself into a corner should buy you some time. At least, it does for my characters. (I'm trying to write a goddamn GENFIC, you guys! Get back here!) I realize that 'sit real still and say nothing' isn't likely to be a strategy that Axel can implement, however. You could try giving each other the "Let's be friends" talk, but bear in mind that messy breakups are never effective. I'm not sure it's even possible to stage a friendly mutual breakup in fanficland._

_Mildly amused by Axel's torment but not so much by yours because pregnancy hurts enough when your body is designed for it,_

_Cygna_

_P.S. Tell Axel I still think he's a murdering jerkface._

"I really wish I'd known that about the pennyroyal stuff."

"I knew about it," Axel said smugly.

"Liar."

"Am not."

"She hates you, by the way," Roxas said, waving the letter and smirking.

"They do that sometimes. I don't really get it," Axel said simply, reaching for another review. "I can't begin to describe how _satisfying_ it is whenever I get to fry Vexen's icy ass—"

"Yeah, uh, you go on about that and there're gonna be some more lightning bolts. And they'll obliterate more than just a script," Roxas added sharply when Axel looked like he was going to keep going anyway.

"I'm just _saying_, the guy was a creep. Is a creep. Whatever. And Zex—"

"Don't even go there."

"_Totally Riku Replica's fault_."

BZZAAAT

Roxas passed a hand over his eyes. "This is how it works. I say shut up, and you _shut up_. Okay?"

"Got…mem…'rized…"

He coughed hoarsely, and Roxas took the review he'd been holding, his eye landing on LilyFlare at the signature line.

_Hmm... So you need suggestions from us as to how to defeat the writer. I gotta say, the only thing I can come up with is a suicide pact. I mean, if you're both gone, the story ends. Right? Ha! Think if Sora had used that train of thought: "Well crap. The worlds are overrun with heartless. My girl's lost her heart and my best friend's turned to the dark side. Only one way to end this." -slits wrists- XD So, yeah, I'm not much help, but I'll be rooting for you! And yes, please abort that abomination. Mpreg is not valid plot!_

Axel frowned. "We really should've tried harder to abort that thing."

"It died and that's what matters."

"I'm totally suggesting suicide to Sora the next time I get stuck in a fic with him."

"Riku's more likely to go through with it," Roxas pointed out, reading over the beginning again. "So we've got suicide pact, writer's block, and breakup. Friendship is just about out of the question, but as long as we separate I guess it still works."

"I like the writer's block idea," Axel said then, smirking demonically. "Nothing frustrates them more than that. Except maybe bad writing."

"You're not much help when it comes to that, though."

"I'm interesting. I can't help it."

Roxas rolled his eyes.

"Anything else? What's this one?" Axel asked, picking up the latest, which was sitting off to one side by itself.

"I'm not sure. There's a name, but there's nothing written in it."

Axel frowned. "That's really w—_OW_!" he yelped suddenly as something cracked against his skull. "Could we stop abusing me please?!" he demanded of the heavens, waving his arms in protest.

"It's the rock."

"Mael rock?"

"Yeah. _Don't_," Roxas said sharply, jerking it back as Axel reached for it.

"_What_? I just wanna see it."

"No, you wanna _melt_ it. I know you."

Axel hung his head. "Guilty as charged."

_Dear Axel & Roxas,_

_Hi guys, CJ here. I apologize for giving the Evil Authoress the mpreg idea, though she may have already had it in mind being Evil and all. I am most definitely NOT responsible for details like the baby playing soccer with Roxas's kidneys. I mean, damn, that just ain't right. But I digress._

_I know it seems impossible to fight against the very being who's writing your script. It's the old argument of predestination versus free will after all; predestination says that we out here in the Real World have our own Author writing our story with a definite, foreordained end, and free will says we choose our fates. I prefer to think I'm the boss of me, but then again I don't have an author yanking my chain quite so hard either._

_You are your own characters. You are individuals. You have your own quirks, talents and failings. We know some of them, but not all of them, and if we let you speak you'll tell us more. It's hard sometimes to relinquish control and let you, the characters, tell the story but that's the key to it all. Just talk to us, because we want to hear more from the boy whose summer vacation is over too soon, and the friend who made the ultimate sacrifice for him. You have an audience who wants to hear you, and you have an author who wants to make you shine._

_That's enough philosophy for one day. Good luck, and I'll be watching from the other side of the screen._

_Yours, Canderjack_

Axel snorted. "She totally stole the mpreg idea."

"I think she already had it," Roxas mused. "She strikes me as that type. I doubt it's ever far from her mind."

"She's not that creative. Why else would she be asking for help?" Axel glared at the rock. "Freakin' double agents."

Roxas stared at him.

"What?"

"Nothing." Roxas gathered up the reviews, leaving the praise at first, but on second thought he picked those up too. "So we've got writer's block, suicide pact, divorce, and being really loud and influential. We'll have to figure out which one of those to use. For now, we'll keep the support and confront the authoress with it if we have to. We can do that with the advice, too, since it's technically the same idea. As for the praise, well…I can threaten to have you burn it if things get hairy."

"_Now_ you're talking!" Axel said brightly, calling his chakrams and juggling them familiarly.

"Let's not get too eager," Roxas told him, sounding a little subdued. The image had immediately brought back memories of the fight only moments before, and with it all the issues. "We gotta get moving. Chapter's long enough as it is."

"Reviews' fault."

"You're always blaming other things!" Roxas exploded suddenly, whirling. "I _hate_ that! Why can't you just take responsibility for once?"

Axel arched an eyebrow. "You think you do any different?"

"W—_yeah_!" Roxas got out with a bitter laugh.

"All right." Axel suddenly seemed to grow taller, and his eyes glittered with a menacing kind of quiet suffering. When he spoke, it was to bite off the ends of the words sharply. "You. Left. Me. You knew what it would do to me—you were all I _had_, goddammit, but you just tried to pass it off like I wouldn't care."

"Sora _needed_ me," Roxas murmured.

"All right," Axel said coldly, raising a chakram to his shoulder. "Blame Sora then."

"I'm _not_—you're _impossible_!" Roxas half-screamed, clenching his fists. "And it shouldn't goddam _matter_ if you can just pass him off as me!"

Axel dismissed one of the chakrams to run a hand through his hair and shook his head. "Same old shit over and over again. We're just a broken record everywhere you look."

"Maybe we should split up, then."

There was a silence.

"Maybe we should," Axel mumbled.

"Fine."

"…Fine."

"Fine!" Roxas shouted suddenly, turned his back—he'd lost count of the times he'd done that now—and ran down the same street, leaving the same man and the same unbroken unheart behind.

* * *

A cheery giggle. "Welp. Time for my favorite part!"

Axel whirled to find Minnie standing by Memory Skyscraper and wearing an Organization cloak that left nothing to the imagination. "You really don't wanna fuck with me right now," he growled.

"On the contrary. I do," she said lightly. "You're always at your weakest right when Roxas leaves."

"All right, you asked for it!" He launched both chakrams at her head, but she dodged to one side with superhuman speed.

"I'm a 'Sue, darling," she reminded him with an unsettling smirk. "And the author. You're at my beck and call, if you remember."

"I don't take orders from you," he hissed from between gritted teeth. "The hell do you want with me, anyway? Roxas is gone and I'm gonna angst for days. You got what you wanted."

"Not quite. I need Roxas to do some crying. And you _are_ my favorite character." Her eyes glinted maliciously and she called to her hand something that looked like a bastardized version of every single Organization member's weapon of choice. "Call me selfish."

* * *

Roxas hated himself. It was barely two hours later and he was already walking back the way he'd come, cursing under his breath and convincing himself over and over again that he'd just dropped LilyFlare's note and he was going back for it. If Axel happened to be there, that was no fault of his.

Axel _was_ there, but not the way Roxas had expected. At first he figured Axel had curled up and started sobbing, which seemed really pathetic for Axel and nowhere near enough to inspire Roxas's pity, but there was something a little wrong about what he was seeing. At first he thought Axel's hair was too long and a weird texture, but…

Oh.

He'd seen Axel dead before. Hell, Axel probably died even more than Sora, Riku, and Roxas _combined_, but there was still something quietly horrifying about such a familiar, unmoving body. And even though Roxas knew he'd be up and about again by the next fic, there was a pang of something like loss in his heartless chest.

_Whatever._ He turned and tried not to look back, already calling on tears that weren't entirely fake. They'd separated and Axel was dead.

It was over.

* * *

A/N: So the head of my family of Axel Sims (eight of them, of course) had an alien baby. It was so cute! It had his eyes and everything. And I pretty much went, fic-licious! And then killed it with a satellite.

ANGST IN MAWDURAYSHUN.

HUGE thanks to the people who mailed in with support and advice, ya'll came up with things I NEVER would've thought of and now the fic is a million times better than it would've been! :D


	8. Keep your head down, we're not safe yet

**NAWT AS LAWNG AS IT LUKS. D8 PROMISS.**

**WATCH THE FUCK OUT: _DEATH NOTE SPOILERZ._**

* * *

The story was supposed to be _over_, dammit.

Roxas stretched and yawned widely, gold strands brushing alabaster skin as he brought a hand down to rub at one deep blue eye. A snort of annoyance split his delicate lips as he felt his skin turn to ice from that "alabaster" comment, and he let out a low sigh and sat back on his pale white hands, wondering idly when the paragraph was going to end.

Sustaining a writer's block of this duration and intensity was harder than he thought, especially since the writer showed no signs of giving up. Other than perhaps all the clichéd descriptions, but Roxas wasn't sure if that was padding or another stab at clichés in general. (He suspected padding.)

So he rolled his shoulders and neck and tried to get comfortable again, thoughts wandering for a minute to the logic behind fighting the writer. There was a chance he could get her to stop, yes, but there was even more of a chance that he'd be stuck in limbo until she finally called it quits and whined and moaned to the readers, but Roxas wasn't sure—

_Ah, no no no._

Waving a chastising finger at the sky, Roxas cleared his thoughts and cut the inner monologue short.

And then there was nothing to write.

At the keyboard, the writer frothed at the mouth, indulged in several hunts for _exactly_ the right word, curled into the L position in a fruitless attempt to enhance brain activity, decided that blasting Breaking Benjamin didn't help but continued to blast it anyway, ranted to herself that a _real writer's block_ was _not_ part of the plan, and described herself extensively. It was starting to feel like fighting a losing battle.

On the other hand, it occurred to her that the lack of a writer's block would (ironically enough) have made the chapter impossible to write in the first place—but that was bringing that blasted _logic_ into things and logic has no place in fanfiction.

Which is why Minnie came bounding joyously in to save the day. Or, well, it wasn't so much "bounding" as "stalking" and definitely not as "joyously" as it was "maliciously." Her eyes, which had forgotten what color they were, flashed with torturous intent, but Roxas met her gaze steadily. There was no torture ever devised to which he had not been sacrificed at least once, but he knew that if it came down to it he'd suffer every single one of them again to fill up the rest of the chapter, and that would be boring for everyone but the sadists. They were at an impasse.

"I'm going to get you to talk," Minnie snarled, her beautiful face made no less beautiful by the ugly grimace splitting it.

Roxas looked at her and said nothing.

Minnie called a knife from thin air and for a moment looked like she was going to throw it, but then a calmness settled over her that told Roxas the author was using her as a vessel again. She glared at the text and let out a low growl at all the clichés, but shook her head and advanced on Roxas, flipping the knife around in her hand. "Rule of thumb. Every character has a weakness, Roxas. I'm going to find yours."

Roxas thought about pointing out that 'Sues didn't have any, but decided to remain silent.

Minnie kept walking, twirling the knife and looking thoughtful and villainous. "I guess I could be boring and hurt the people you care about the most, but to be honest I'm not sure if that'll work. It's not like that hasn't happened before. No…there's something else. And you'll tell me what it is." She smirked suddenly. "You won't want to, but you will."

"I thought you said you hated doing this," Roxas said suddenly and quickly, trying not to let this burst of characterization last.

With an unmistakable glint of triumph in her eyes, the author glared at him and abruptly threw the knife at the ground. It was probably supposed to stick in the pavement and quiver ominously, but instead it just hit and spun in a circle. "I _do_, dummy! What you don't seem to get is that we've got a lot more in common than you think. You pull my strings just as hard as I pull yours, and while that doesn't make us equals, understand that my hands are _tied_ in this."

"I'm not pulling them now," Roxas muttered from between gritted teeth, furious with himself for taking the bait.

"Thus the block," she muttered sourly. "But the muse is at work, and that's half the battle. Commanding bitch, that one."

"Empathy won't work."

"Shrewd," Minnie murmured with a faint smile. "Anyway. I didn't want to do this, but you leave me no choice. I have _stuff_ scheduled, and that means we don't have time for a Q&A."

"Plagiarizing bitch."

"That's me." Suddenly the authoress smirked in a way that made Roxas's stomach drop. "I see…_there_ it is! It was right there all along. Ah, well. Merry Christmas."

She snapped her fingers and something black, red, angular, and pissed off popped into (non)existence a few feet above Roxas's lap. After the initial shouts of pain and grunts of exertion as flailing black limbs struggled to disentangle themselves from other flailing black limbs, Roxas sat back and blinked, without much surprise, at Axel. "You came back to life?"

The Flurry of Dancing Flames shrugged. "I do that."

Then he caught sight of Minnie, and suddenly the temperature within a twenty foot radius of them rose dramatically with him. "_You_," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous and filled with loathing. He struggled for a minute, but in the end he was unable to come up with more than, "That _sucked_."

"You're telling _me_," she muttered, jabbing a thumb at the first page and a half.

"I'm not sure what I'm gonna do to you," he continued darkly, rising and clenching his fists. Beside him, Roxas called Oblivion, but kept his left hand free for the moment. "How's spontaneous combustion sound?"

"Familiar," Minnie said simply with a knowing smirk.

"_You motherfucki—_!"

"As much as I'd like to stick around and get my extremities melted together, I have a date with the plot. Oh, and YOU GOT MAEL."

Axel pitched backward suddenly and Roxas was quick to find that a pair of rocks had glanced off his head and the author was vanishing. That left the Keymaster with a split second decision to make—practicality said _go for the authoress_, but instinct said _catch Axel before he smashes his head in_.

So he took two quick sideways steps and caught Axel around the waist with one arm, keeping Oblivion up with the other just in case the author wasn't a lost cause like he thought. The redhead sagged against him, and Roxas shook him once. "Axel, c'mon. I know she didn't hit you that hard."

"Yeah, she fucking did," Axel wheezed faintly. "But it's not that. Being dead wears a guy out."

"Don't talk about that," the blond snapped. "Can you stand?"

"Nope."

"Try."

"You let go, I'll fall. Promise."

Axel was holding on tight enough to make that sound legitimate, so Roxas rolled his eyes and bent to deposit him on the ground. "Don't move. I'll go get the rocks."

"You're the one who runs off, not me," Axel muttered.

"And _beat_ you with them."

"Everyone is always throwing stuff at me!"

Roxas didn't bother to address the hypocrisy, knowing it would just evolve into a stupid argument and they might end up trying to kill each other like last chapter. Instead, he went around and scooped up the rocks without breaking stride, looking over the longer one and handing the shorter one to Axel.

_Hi guys,_

_Whatever witty thing I was going to write got derailed when I noticed that Axel had called me a double agent. Double agent, as in traitor? What the hell, dude! I'm trying to help you schmucks! I was about to go off on the (now dearly departed) murdering jerkface when it hit me like a mael rock to the head:_

_He's right. It's a fair cop. I sent in some cliches, I reviewed, and I may have squee'd a little bit (in my HEAD! Honest!) when I saw my letter in the last chapter. Am I the Evil Authoress? No, but my hands aren't exactly clean either. Someday soon I'll be tempted to pick up the puppet strings and have a go at this; from the character's view, does it really matter who's in control if you still have to march?_

_Two suggestions: I agree with the writer's block plan as Step 1. Might I suggest releasing a herd of plot bunnies as Step 2? If you're really suffering from writer's block, plot bunnies are like potato chips: you can't stop at one. It could be useful as a distraction. Also, instead of climbing all the way to the top of the page to get to the reviews, go along the bottom of the page to the "Return to Top" link and use that to teleport up. Then you can use the scroll bar on the right to rappel back down the page._

_Good luck guys. You especially, Axel, what with that whole revivification thing. Tylenol's in the medicine cabinet, right side, bottom shelf._

_Till next time,  
__CJ_

"That chick who broke a promise recommends writer's block," Axel said simply, chucking the smaller rock over his shoulder.

"Start ragging on the readers and you're guaranteed a _really ugly time_."

"Shut up. I feel like crap all over," Axel complained, taking Canderjack's rock when Roxas offered it. "Here we go with the double agent…"

"Like you're one to talk."

"Thought I told you to shut up."

Axel scanned the note and let out a whoop. "Fuck yes!" he shouted, shoving the rock back at Roxas and making for Memory Skyscraper at a run. But after about three paces he hurried back to lean over Roxas's shoulder and run a finger down the lines. "Which shelf again?"

"Bottom. It's not gonna be hard to find," Roxas told him, raising his voice as Axel darted off again.

"Come off it, you know Xemnas is _shit_ at organization!" Axel called over his shoulder and disappeared up the steps.

Roxas waited patiently for him to come back, looking over the note again. Everyone was on about writer's block, and that had worked up to a point, but with Axel back he wasn't sure if he could manage it again. Dying would probably work, but it was messy, and if the authoress wasn't done with them she could bring them back just as easily. Plot bunnies seemed interesting enough, but they were dangerous. The things worked like reverse bunnies, quick to combine into one another and take over fics. Still, if they could get a good block going and release the bunnies, the authoress would have no choice but to concentrate on other fics, unless she could figure out a way to…

He had a sudden image of himself and Axel experiencing a neverending stream of clichés and scripts and plots with the shortest possible time span between.

No. Plot bunnies would backfire.

Axel got back in time to catch his sigh and shifted his weight to one leg, still rubbing his head. "What're we doing?"

"I don't know. We could try for a writer's block again, but there's _you_," Roxas said with a pointed look.

"Oh, you tried that?" Axel asked, scratching his ear. "Explains why everything feels kinda stiff."

"Minnie mentioned it."

"Like I listen to her." The redhead eased down next to him and fumbled for the rock again. "If you're outta ideas, that double agent said something interesting…"

"Dude, you piss her off and she's not gonna give us any more advice."

"What is it with you and not shutting up?"

Axel frowned at the rock a minute, then suddenly broke into a grin that Roxas absolutely didn't like. "Scroll bar."

"What about it?"

"We can _use it_." Axel was standing now and getting too close to it for comfort. "We can skip straight down to the end of the fic!"

"I don't think that'll work."

"Roxas, listen. Physics," Axel said, pointing downward. "Reader gets to bottom of webpage. Reader notes lack of newer chapters. Reader gets the fuck out. Fic over."

"And if the writer posts a new one?"

"Then the writer posts a new one, but are we seriously about to pass up a chance to get outta here?"

Roxas threw up his hands. "Fine. But if we get killed, I'm gonna hurt you."

"Have fun managing that one."

Axel leapt up onto the bar, which suddenly

dropped a line even as Roxas leapt after him. The blond realized too late that their combined weight was going to send the already small scroll bar to the very bottom of the webpage, and was barely able to contain a scream as they pitched _down_—

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PAGE 13

It felt like Axel had just been through a dryer, and he was also pretty sure he knew how Sora felt after all those falling scenes. He waited for the world to stop spinning before getting to his feet, and noticed Roxas staggering over to the edge of Twilight Town's clocktower to retch. "You okay?" he asked, wavering a little and putting a hand to his head.

The blond wiped his lip with a shaking hand. "Spiffy."

"So…" Axel toed the ground in embarrassment. "That didn't quite…go…the way I wanted it to."

Roxas punctuated that with a contemptuous snort.

"Well hey, I _tried_!" Axel defended quickly.

"Yeah. And it didn't work. So let's try the writer's block again," Roxas said firmly, plunking himself down on the railing and looking out at the sunset.

"Writer's block is _boring_," Axel complained, but he sat anyway. He was careful to keep still, but he couldn't seem to shut his mind down, too busy thinking about other means of escape and the tortures Minnie was going to suffer the next time he saw her and did Roxas really like bondage or did he just pretend for fics and would it end well if Axel asked about it?

After the third time of trying to think about nothing but air, absolutely nothing but stuff about air, he finally realized why the perspective had switched to him. Axel was by no means an idiot, and was in fact devious to a fault, which had the drawback of an inability to clear his mind and meditate properly (or jump from skyscraper to skyscraper, depending on the situation).

"This isn't working," Roxas said shortly. "We might have to try plot bunnies."

Axel probably would have replied to that had a crash not resounded from behind them, followed by some groaning and cursing. Both of them turned to find that two boys had apparently fallen from the sky, and were most definitely not of the world in which they now found themselves. "Crossover," Axel groaned, hoping to Kingdom Hearts that it wasn't another Harry Potter one.

The one on bottom (for lack of a better word) had the messy mop of black hair that Axel dreaded, and turned his head to one side as his companion started to get up. "I maintain my position against having sex on our towers."

The other boy's lips twitched. "Noted."

"Ohhhh, bad pun. Very, very bad…"

The two of them were mercifully clothed, but definitely looked like they'd been in the process of changing that state sometime before they fell off the side of the earth and landed on the Twilight Town clocktower, of all places.

"Light?" Roxas said then, and Axel flinched back instinctively.

Light's head snapped up and he took both of them in at a glance. His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of Axel. "Oh _f—_give me the notebook," he said, and the chain on his hand jingled sharply as he stretched it out to the form still curling into a sitting position on the ground. Oh, all right, _L_. I mean, c'mon, you guys know it's L, right?

The detective's eyes were calculating. "What do you need it for?"

Light gave him a look of pure loathing. "_Notes_."

"Notes on what exactly?"

"You know goddam what exactly, stop being a bitch and give me the Death Note."

L prodded his lower lip with his thumb. "Hmm. I'm very sorry, Light, but that won't be possible. I don't have it."

"The next time I kill you will be _extremely painful_," Light growled, shoving him back to the ground and holding him there by one shoulder. It was wasted effort—L submitted to the search without a word and Roxas and Axel quickly shielded their eyes.

"Guys? A little discretion?" Axel suggested.

"It's unfortunately something extremely important to him and I'm certain he'll stop at nothing to—_nnh_! _What_!" L choked out suddenly, and Axel heard Light let out a hiss of pain. "Light, we've _talked_ about this."

"I had to make sure."

"I promise you, _it will not fit up there_."

"F-fine, that _hurts_…"

There was some shifting and Light sighed with relief, but Axel waited until he heard the rustle of clothing before looking out again. L was still pulling on his shirt, but Light was fully clothed, if a bit disheveled. "All right, are you guys done stealing the spotlight and can we concentrate on the story again?" Axel wanted to know.

"Yeah, we're done," Light said sourly, tugging on the chain handcuffing him to L to force the detective into a standing position. "I take it we've fallen into a fic of some sort. Bring us up to speed."

Something Axel really hated about Light was his commanding demeanor. He had this naïve, deferential façade, but when he got comfortable he lapsed into an attitude like he owned the world and everything in it.

"Basically we're in and we want out," Roxas explained quickly. "And now that you're in, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't want out, too. We've gotten advice from the readers and tried everything we know, but so far nothing's worked."

"May I see the advice?" L asked, and Roxas passed him the earlier notes together with the rocks from Canderjack. He set those aside and sifted through the papers idly, holding them up between forefinger and thumb as he was wont to do.

"So what have you tried exactly?" Light wanted to know, crossing his arms and taking in Twilight Town below. Axel could almost see the gears turning in both minds.

"We tried to abort Roxas's green kid, but that didn't quite work out," he reported, scratching his temple. "Then I died, and that didn't work, so Roxas tried writer's block for a while, and we just got done messing with the scroll bar. What else were we thinking? Plot bunnies?" he asked Roxas.

"I expect those will do more harm than good," L commented from behind Cygna-hime's note.

Light glared at him. "If there's no other alternative…"

L met his gaze steadily. "There is _always_ an alternative, Light."

"Suggest one."

L's attention returned to the notes.

"You can't do it."

"I can't make it happen _instantly_."

"Like you do in fics?" Light demanded suddenly. "Where you suddenly know _everything_ about _everything_ and can't begin to explain how you came by any of it?"  
The detective sighed. "Do we have to have this argument now?"

"Who's arguing?"

"Everyone who isn't Kira."

"Fine, if you want this to be an argument, I'll argue. And you _really_ need to figure out what you're calling me, I'm getting sick of Raito and Raito-kun and Light and Light-kun and _goddamned Lighto_."

L's eyes narrowed. "I can't control that and you know it, but as long as we're taking pot shots, maybe I should elaborate on what a stuttering mess you are when it comes to sex scenes."

"_Not all the damn time_ and that is a _double-edged sword_, Ryuuzaki—!"

"CUT IT OUT!" Axel thundered, getting between them and holding up his hands to keep them from getting physical. "_Enough_."

"Get out of the way," Light ordered sharply.

"Please don't interfere," L added, his eyes burning.

Axel ignored them. "Listen. You're in the same boat as us. It's all the time, it's overdone, and it's filled with all the clichés…" He surprised himself by stopping suddenly and resisting the urge to glance back at Roxas. For a moment he wasn't sure if he could go on. "…And maybe there was something there once, maybe you really _were_ more than just friends or enemies or whatever the hell you guys are, even if it was for just a moment…but now you're so sick of each other that you can't remember what it was like."

The two seemed so lost in their mutual glare that Axel wasn't sure if they even heard him, but after a minute Light sighed and the handcuffs clinked as L raised a thumb to his lips. "Thank you," he murmured. "We were starting to lose control there. Right now we have to devote our attention to the matter at hand."

"We need a name and a face," Light muttered.

"What was that?"

"We need to get out of this place."

"Naturally."

"All right, so who's for plot bunnies?" Axel said quickly before the situation could spiral out of control again.

"I advise against them," L repeated firmly, climbing up on the railing to crouch and peruse the notes. "It would seem that writer's block only serves as a temporary deterrent in this case. Dying didn't work either, so we can assume that mass suicide will meet with the same results, because this author does not subscribe to the practice of _logic_," he added with a certain disdain.

"This one does," Roxas spoke up suddenly.

There was a silence.

"Sorta," Axel said.

"In that case, perhaps this tactic will work," L suggested, turning Cygna-hime's note around. "If she writes herself into a corner, to the point that nothing makes sense anymore, she may abandon the story through sheer frustration."

The four of them considered that.

"Okay, _that_ won't work," Axel said finally, passing a hand over his eyes.

L looked inquisitive. "No?"

"Trust me. This one could write herself out of a black hole if she put her mind to it. I mean, it'd be shit. But she'd get out."

Roxas was frowning at the ground. "Which one is this?"

"The one with the banana aphrodisiacs."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

L sighed irritably and leapt down from the railing, studying the two of them with his back hunched and his hands buried in his pockets. "At this point, we can't afford to discount possibilities. We're running out of options. There has to be a weak point somewhere." The detective cocked his head to one side and thought a moment. "Maybe if it's shit, she'll get frustrated with _that_."

Axel glanced up the page and doubted, but given that they hadn't come up with anything else, he shrugged. "All right. What're you thinking?"

"I'm thinking there's ice cream here and I want some," L said frankly, moving for the stairs and hauling Light behind him. "As far as confusing the narrative, I'm sure an opportunity will present itself."

Axel started to follow them, but stopped short when he noticed that Roxas wasn't moving. "Hey. You all right?"

"Yeah. I…" Roxas scratched the back of his head. "I just…I was wondering what L's weakness is."

"Sweets."

"I'm serious," he insisted, and Axel semi-felt a pang of regret. The blond bit his lip. "I think that author knows mine. And…now I'm not sure how she'll use it."

"However I see fit."

It was cliché, and they knew it was cliché, but they whirled anyway and found Minnie leaning against the doorway with one leg akimbo. She looked up at them from where she was scribbling down a few notes and smirked. "I see you've rallied the troops. L is getting a bit close for comfort…"

Roxas snorted, his eyes cold. "I thought you wanted us to fight."

"Oh, I did, but dragging in extra players is cheating."

"Tough," Axel snapped. "You brought him here. If he can get us outta here, we won't hesitate."

Minnie snapped her notebook shut and looked at her watch. "Unless he can manage it in forty seconds, I very much doubt that."

* * *

Author's Death Note: THIS is the chapter where it was supposed to END, dammit, but it ended up too long. So expect another one…um…eventually. You know my screwy schedule. Why L and Light? Because they rock. Also I'm a total fanfic whore and _damned_ if another popular fandom doesn't work its way into my fic about a popular fandom.

(But if you're reading, you know it's for you, Tanny. ;) HUGZ.)

Again, crossovers are FINE if done WELL, but if not, just keep in mind that:

DETH NOHT IZ NAWT KINGDUM HARTS.

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—and came to a shuddering halt at the bottom of the chapter.

Roxas was trembling so violently that he barely had the strength to shove himself off the bar. His legs crumpled under him and he spent several seconds on his hands and knees, panting and trying to reallocate his inner organs.

Axel, in the meantime, hopped off with a whoop and looked around expectantly at the shifting final boss background of Kingdom Hearts II. "That was something! Hey Roxas, we made it!"

The blond blinked owlishly at him. "Uh. So. What…now? The fic'll just keep going…"

Axel considered that one. Then he cleared his throat and stretched out a hand dramatically. "The rest is silence."

(A/N: Fail.)

_Scroll up to page 13._


	9. Pinch me to waking

"It _had_ to be data Twilight Town."

"Shut up, Axel."

Axel let out a sarcastic little laugh. "Like you can say that when I just saved your ass from DiZ."

"I gave in to him for a _reason_. It might've progressed the plot. Why couldn't you just go with the flow?"

Jade eyes turned to steel. "I'll give you a _hint_. It's the same reason _you_ don't let me use the passage between here and the World That Never Was anymore."

Roxas let out a low growl.

Time had elapsed since the last chapter's end, and both Nobodies were feeling less like badasses and more like sardines packed into hot, squeaky leather. Grabbing the Death Note from Minnie had been another stupid idea of Axel's that running away had miraculously helped, but Roxas had a sneaking suspicion that the author had just let them go, and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to think about that.

"Have it your way," he muttered lifelessly, not sure if he was talking to Axel or the author.

Axel took it the wrong way anyhow. "You know what? Fuck this shit. Fuck the author, fuck the fic, fuck the readers, and fuck _you_," he said suddenly, throwing up his hands. "I'm getting outta here if it's the _last goddam thing I do_." With that, he whipped out the Death Note and was halfway through writing his name before Roxas even had a chance to roll his eyes.

"Axel."

"Not now. Dying."

"Axel, you don't have a heart."

"Thanks for the newsflash. Hadn't realized."

Roxas pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the explosion. "So _how_ in the name of Ansem the Wise do you plan on dying of a _heart attack_?"

"Well—"

There was a silence. Axel looked from the notebook to Roxas, and back to the notebook. "…Fuck."

"C'mon," Roxas said with forced patience, starting to move again. "So we lost L and Light, but so did she. If they can't be fucking around that's one less thing to keep the readers int…Axel? You listening?"

"…should be a _manual_ to this thing—son of a bitch, these are the rules? They go on for _pages_…!"

"Could you focus for _two seconds_? If you're that determined to kill yourself I can shove you in front of the _ghost train_—"

"_Aha_!" Axel said triumphantly from behind the Death Note, holding up one finger. "You can control the cause of death! I'm gonna have you choke on sea-salt."

Roxas stopped and sighed, dropping his face forward into his hand. "_Why_ does it have to be the Death Note? She'll just bring us back."

"Maybe not. If she doesn't bring L and Light back, maybe she won't do it to us, either." Axel met Roxas's flat glare with narrowed eyes. "It's all I've got to work with, so I'm making the best of it." He prodded the blond in the nose impishly. "Got it memorized?"

Blue eyes practically sizzled in their sockets. "Have you got a cause down for you yet?"

"No, but I was th—_hey_!"

Axel was too late, and Roxas was already angrily scribbling out a cause of death for his beloved. He shoved the notebook back into Axel's hands and threw the pen at his head, turning on his heel to keep right on walking. Behind him, the redhead fumbled and almost dropped the Death Note, but then snorted as he read over it. "_Glomped_ to death by a horde of rabid…fan…girls…?" He paled. "I di…I ha…I didn'tknowanyonecouldbethiscruel."

"It's not gonna work," Roxas told him over his shoulder. "It's already been like twenty seconds and you don't see me bolting for ice cream."

Axel waited the full forty, eyes darting warily around Tram Common and hand out to call a portal if necessary, but he finally judged it safe and caught up with Roxas, snatching up the pen again as he walked. "You didn't have to do that."

"No."

"Maybe if I use our _others'_ names…"

Roxas stopped dead and stared at the sky. "Is that…?"

Axel wasn't listening. "So mine's not official, so _what_—it's three letters, not like I won't get it eventually—hey, you think Sora's around? It'll probably kill him—maybe it'll kill you _both_, now _that's_ a thought—"

"_LOOK OUT_!"

It happened very suddenly. One minute Roxas's hand was on Axel's arm, and the next they were both about twenty feet away, breathing hard and shielding their faces from the explosion that happened right where they'd been standing. They held still for a moment, still spooked—as Organization members, their reflexes were honed to perfection, but that had been a close call even for them.

Eventually the smoke cleared to the point that they could see the ship that had just crashed, and the top popped open to admit a coughing, blackened Sora, who was talking down to someone in the cockpit. "I don't _care_ if you beat me at Smash Brothers, you can't drive a Gummi ship for _shit_! We've been over this!"

"I was doing _fine_ until that fucking asteroid—"

"It was _thirty feet away_."

Roxas recognized the voice right away, and the groan at his right confirmed that Axel had, too. The blond shot him an icy look. "Be _civil_."

"You mean like _you_ are?"

This prompted Roxas to stomp on his foot.

Sora, in the meantime, had vaulted out of the ship and was continuing his argument with the still dismounting Riku. "I'm telling you, I've got experience like you wouldn't believe with this thing, I know how it works."

"It's not like it's _that_ hard."

"_You_ have clearly never gone through Sunlight Storm's third level. Have you beat Sephiroth?" Sora demanded when Riku opened his mouth to dispute that. "Have you faced him twice and beat his one-winged ass into mush?"

"…No."

"_Argument over_."

"_Always_ pulling the Sephiroth card…" Riku went on to mutter some things about "beating back the darkness" and "escaping Kingdom Hearts" and "that fucking _Zexion_," but Sora was busy taking in their surroundings.

"This again?" he asked plaintively when he saw Roxas and Axel.

"This again," Axel all but growled, rising from where he'd been rubbing his foot and exchanging a look of mutual hatred with Riku. "We just lost a coupling, so I'm guessing you guys are the replacements."

"_Perfect_," Sora said, throwing up his hands. "Just fucking _perfect_. Here I was getting some actual _development_ with Namine and out of _nowhere_—"

As if to punctuate his words, a swirling portal of darkness appeared in the middle of Tram Common and spat out a dizzy, disheveled Kairi who had evidently just gotten snatched from a beach at Destiny Islands. Roxas shot Axel a suspicious look, but the redhead shook his head and shrugged.

"Yaoi territory," Riku warned her impassively.

"Again? Well. This won't last," Kairi said tartly, crossing her arms. "When I inevitably get hit by a bus or struck by lightning or contract hepatitis, do me a favor and _don't_ cry for me this time. It's embarrassing."

"I can't very well ignore stage directions," Sora reminded her, but he looked more interested in the Gummi wreckage. "Not a good chance of us getting out of here anytime soon…" He shot Riku a glare.

"Doubt it makes a difference," Axel pointed out. "The author's got her fist around us this time. You don't even wanna know how it's been."

"I watched my best friend go through a meat-grinder feet first without throwing up," Riku snapped, and Sora winced reflexively. "I think I can handle a shitty author."

"Touché," Roxas said quickly before Axel could make an issue of it. "But I think we can all agree that the world could use less crap in it, so I suggest we try to get out of here before she finds an excuse to up the chapters again."

"All right, so what do we _do_?" Axel demanded, waving the Death Note angrily. "We've tried writer's block, we've tried the scroll bar, we've tried breaking up, we've tried dying, we've tried going with the flow—nothing _works_! The only thing we _haven't_ tried is plot bunnies, and I don't even wanna think about the shitstorm _that'll_—"

"Have you tried splicing?" Riku asked suddenly.

"What's splicing?" Roxas said before Axel could ask the same question with some colorful decorations.

The silver-haired boy sighed. "_Amateurs_."

Sora popped him in the back of the head. "I didn't get onto you about it when you didn't know how a sixty-nine worked. Remember that."

Riku's eyes narrowed as a shit-eating grin spread over Axel's face. "_Thanks_. Basically, guys, splicing is when an author starts mixing elements of another character with you. To make this work to your advantage, all you have to do is let that other character take control. Pretty soon it won't be your voice anymore—it won't be _you_ anymore, and you'll drop right out of the story."

"The tough part is getting the author to do that in the first place," Sora put in, looking up as Kairi finally stopped checking the sky for comets aimed in her direction and joined them. "Usually it only works if you're playing through another story, like, say, Little Mermaid."

"Or Death Note," Riku added, catching sight of the notebook in Axel's hand. The redhead shot him an innocent look and cracked the book open, making a show of starting to write a capital "R."

"Would you stop that?" Roxas demanded, smacking the book upward to screw him up.

"I kind of wish it would happen already," Kairi was saying to Sora quietly, looking remarkably at ease for someone who generally had to fear for her life. "Probably the hardest part is the anxiety." She said it very casually, but there was an undertone of fear that didn't quite escape her voice.

Sora dropped his eyes from hers. "I'm sorry that…we can't protect you."

Behind him, Riku scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed. "Hey…next fic, if we catch a break, let's do some bonding."

His best friend nodded at that. "Yeah—I'll take you both to Atlantis." His eyes hardened a little as his patented, unshakeable determination settled behind them. "Next fic. I promise."

She smiled thinly, already falling victim to Bitch Syndrome but fighting it like a doomed soldier. "I kn…I know you will."

(A/N: NO HET FOR YOU!)

Roxas looked up sharply from a pointless argument with Axel in time to see Kairi spontaneously combust. It was so out of the blue that it might have been funny—except for the very real, very agonized scream that haunted the whole square after she was gone. Riku and Sora had gone rigid, both trembling slightly as though humming with anger and frustration and helplessness. No matter how close Riku and Kairi got in fics, her death would hit Sora harder—everyone in the square knew that. So Roxas wasn't surprised when Riku took a step forward, but the silver-haired boy was moving even before his best friend started to fall, and Sora turned towards him to collapse, already knowing Riku would be there in time. They were so attuned to one another that it almost looked rehearsed, except it wasn't.

The blond found himself wondering if he would ever get that attuned to Axel, or if he already was. He was a little surprised and ashamed to acknowledge that he'd never really _tried_—Axel was such an annoyance half the time that Roxas did more ignoring him than anything else. He shot a surreptitious glance in Axel's direction, but the redhead was still staring at the spot where Kairi had disappeared. "It had to be _fire_," he muttered, and Roxas wondered vaguely if Axel felt somehow _responsible_.

"Let's go. I don't wanna stick around here," Riku announced, and Roxas looked up to see that they had drawn apart and were moving towards the forest. Not really knowing what else to do, Roxas fell in with them and heard Axel complaining behind him. He had a question for Sora, but he wasn't entirely sure how to ask it with Riku around, and he suddenly felt much younger than he really was. Age was always so confusing when characters didn't come into being at the same time, and more so when they got lost in the perpetual march of fanfiction.

Axel stopped dead when they reached the courtyard, staring intently at the gate, and Roxas turned to shoot him a funny look. "Xion," Axel said simply. "Here."

His best friend nodded in understanding. The fourteenth member was still very much a mystery to them, but occasionally they would get pulses—_feelings_, almost, about places connected with her. He wasn't sure when they'd started vocalizing them, but he figured it was a preliminary step; he'd heard from Namine that Sora had done the same thing around Destiny Islands before Chain of Memories.

"You sure?" Riku asked then. He was crossing to stand near Axel, like he expected the gate to change from a different perspective. His eyes were distant. "_Why_," he muttered.

"It's not gonna make any sense yet. Let it go," Sora said over his shoulder, opening the gate and moving on inside. Roxas saw the opportunity and took it—they were, after all, headed for what they both saw as "the place where you and I connect."

He pulled up beside Sora, took a breath, and glared at the ground as he asked, "How do you do it?"

Sora paused before answering. "Do what?"

"You know what." The silence made Roxas uncomfortable. "How do you…put up with it all? You've been at this a lot longer than me, and…sometimes it seems like you and Riku have a deeper connection. More than friends," he added when Sora finally looked at him.

The Keymaster pondered that for another moment. "We do, sometimes," he said finally. "And we don't other times." He wrinkled his nose—something Roxas chalked up to Sora's overwhelming cuteness quota. "I honestly don't remember whether it was real or not back in the day. That's so buried in other memories that I'm not sure what to think anymore. But that's not important. You're still adjusting, Roxas—it takes a _while_, it really does. You should've heard the fights Riku and I were having right before Chain of Memories hit stores," he added with a wry grin.

"But…we're just…!" Roxas was so frustrated he actually struggled to speak for a minute. "It's the _same thing_!" he erupted finally. "The same thing over and over again! Never changes! How _can_ you get used to that?"

Sora sighed in a way that told Roxas he'd heard that question before—likely from Riku. "You do. You have to. This isn't news to you, Roxas, and I can't tell you anything that'll make it any better." He hesitated. "Except…someday something will come along that makes it all worth it."

"A good fic?" the Nobody guessed glumly.

"An original story."

Roxas had to stop walking and stare.

Sora humored him, turning, and for an instant the image of him standing with his back to Namine's window stuck in Roxas's mind, like he was willingly abandoning something he could never know. "We have a golden opportunity here, Roxas," he said softly. "They're everywhere. People are working with us, adapting us, shaping us—communicating and feeling and _learning _through us—and when they're done here, they'll move on and create anew. Brothers and sisters we'll never meet in worlds we'll never walk." His eyes took on a strange kind of intensity that Roxas had never seen in them before. "We're _teachers_, Roxas."

Just as Roxas was about to reply to that, there was a creak behind them. "Oh, what _now_!" the blond demanded, whirling—the whole chapter had been nothing but unwarranted interruptions.

"_Riku_!" Sora shouted in response, ghosting past Roxas and Axel both and stopping short as the gate closed between him and the silver-haired boy. They both gripped at the bars and tugged fruitlessly. "Can you scale it?"

Riku looked up at the spikes above it and grimaced. "I can try. Go on ahead, I'll catch up."

"I'm _not_ leaving you, you stupid _fuck_!" Sora erupted suddenly. "You're always getting stuck behind _locked things_!"

His Nobody had a flash of a thought about Axel's death and wondered faintly if Sora made Riku avoid the End of the World as much as Roxas kept Axel away from the passage between worlds.

The silver-haired boy's expression soured. "Or, okay, we can do _this_." He looked to Roxas and Axel, looking faintly smug—probably because this meant he got Sora all to himself. "Guys, go ahead and hit the basement—this is probably a plot device."

"Of _course_ it's a plot device, _anybody_ could see it's a plot device, that blindfold does things to your eyes…" Sora was still muttering under his breath, but he was more worried than ticked and it was obvious.

"You heard the man," Axel said simply, catching Roxas by the arm and steering him towards the mansion. "You've been quiet lately," he added in a low tone as he did, giving the boy Axel's version of a concerned glance. "Sora say something?"

"Yeah, kinda. Mainly I've just been thinking."

"Ooo, don't do that. Bad for your eyes. Makes 'em go all outta focus and stuff."

The blond shoved him playfully and pressed on into the mansion, wincing inwardly and knowing it was a lot harder for Axel to be here than him. "You think we could pull off that splicing stuff?"

"Maybe. Dibs on Light," Axel gloated, opening up the Death Note again. Roxas wasn't completely sure he was comfortable with Axel having that thing around so much. "I just hate that I won't be around to see the expression on his face when…oh."

"What?"

"Mael," Axel said, pulling a few sheets of paper out of the notebook. He sat down in one of the ratty armchairs and handed Roxas the longer one. "Backstab Traitorpants dropping a line, as usual," he said with a mischievous smirk.

_Agent Double-Aught-Nothing reporting in. (Yeah, I'm going with it, screw you Axel.) Neat trick with the scroll bar. I couldn't predict how it would work but it was worth a shot. Now that the Evil Authoress has dragged Death Note into her fic by the hair you should probably save the plot bunnies as a last resort. Once you get more than one fandom involved they crossbreed and inbreed, and next thing you know you have an anime convention on your hands. Not a pretty sight._

_I've been trying to come up with more ways to help you, but writer's block is contagious. Some authors can be distracted by a new book or new game or new boyfriend (amazing how writing about hot sex pales in comparison to actually getting laid regularly!). Others run out of that precious commodity, Free Time, and never get around to posting more than a chapter or two a month. Then there are those who get discouraged by the lack of reviews or the abundance of flames and never write anything. (That's what keeps me off the forums, the fear of failure.) This particular Evil Authoress is both determined and egotistical so that cuts out 1 and 3. Her "screwy schedule" hints at 2, but she's probably stubborn enough to work around it._

_I'm thinking that since she also mentions how this was supposed to be the last chapter, she might also be looking for a way out that will also make her point. I hate to suggest this because it's more drastic than the plot bunny stampede, but I say, go for the Dramatic Confrontation with the Villain. She'll get to write a cool action scene, which is always tempting, and one way or another it'll be done with because anything after the DCV that isn't an epilogue wouldn't be logical._

_Since this is likely to go completely pear-shaped I'd better say my good-byes now. I'm glad I got the chance to try to help you out and with any luck I'll see you around in other good fics. Maybe even my own, Kingdom Hearts willing._

_Yours,  
__CJ_

Roxas let out a low groan and tried to deflate all the way to his toes.

"Can't be _that_ bad."

"Yeah, it can. We're looking at some kind of a fucked up boss battle with the author unless we can figure out something to eat up all her free time."

Axel made a face and gestured to the chapter around them. "I think we're past that point. We're definitely gonna hafta make with the confrontation. Lemme see the note."

"Why?"

"I wanna _read_ it, whadd'you think?"

Roxas's gaze grew speculative. "Thought you had it in for traitors like her."

A smirk pulled at the edges of Axel's lips. "Well, we double agents gotta stick together."

"Girl-crush much?"

"Gonna fry your balls and you're not gonna like it."

Roxas snorted derisively and let Axel snatch the note from him, skimming one of the others. "Promise recommends cheese," he reported, thinking back to Minnie. She was in the form of the 'Sue, yes, but she might still have that mouse base…or she might be a completely new character and the name was for conformity's sake. Either way, they might want to grab a slab of cheddar for the final showdown, he thought as he switched it out for the note under it. _Roxxihearts?_ he wondered with a wry smirk.

_Weel guys,_

_You are some poor, poor suckers and i would definitely not want to be you right now (sorry). I'd try and help but I kinda suck at helping. Seriously? I'm just a random fangirl. Ermm if not writer's block or death, I can't think of anything else...except maybe getting the author interested in a new couple? That has happened with some of my favorite author's!. They would be in love with this 'OTP' but then get enraptured by some other guys. It's worth a try?_

"What's her OTP?"

"Uh…" Axel frowned a minute, considering that. "Soriku, I think."

"_Yes_."

Axel, in the meantime, made a low, almost frightened sound, face turning into a grimace at Canderjack's note. "Fuck plot bunnies."

"Agreed."

After another minute, the redhead got to his feet, setting the note back down on top of the Death Note. "Candy's right. And no way is this chick getting laid. But it sounds like she's desperate to get it over with, so we might as well track her down and end this thing."

"All right. Where do you suggest we start?"

Axel shrugged. "Sora. He's got a knack for sniffing out final bosses."

"And in the meantime maybe we can switch the focus to him and Riku," Roxas added, waving the note from Roxxihearts. He was surprised to see Axel give it an almost nostalgic look. "What?"

"Nothing. C'mon."

"…You're gonna miss the fanmail, aren't you?"

"Shut up."

Plan formulated, they turned back towards the door—and immediately tensed, muscles locking up and hands out to call their weapons, as they both caught a flash of color from an open doorway. It was an apple resting harmlessly against the doorjamb, only inches from a limp white hand stretched out on the floor.

The redhead's brow furrowed. "Snow White?"

"Could be a trap."

"Probably _is_ a trap."

"I'll be right back."

"Famous last words," Axel snapped, but he didn't stop Roxas from drawing a Keyblade and heading over to the doorway. He turned the corner, recognized the rest of the body—"_Xion_!"—and moved for her side…

And made the mistake of dropping his guard.

Arms were around him in a minute, skinny but unnaturally strong, and he didn't even have to look to know it was Minnie. The overwhelmingly cloying smell should have tipped him off right away, but he'd been too busy thinking about whose hand that was, what it _meant_…

"You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for your weakness," Minnie whispered to him, prodding his back with something sharp—probably the knife from the chapter before. "What is it?"

Bitter disappointment made him clench his teeth at his own failing. "Curiosity," he spat finally, both relieved and angered by the discovery.

"You're lucky it hasn't killed you yet, pussycat."

Roxas opened his mouth to reply to that, but suddenly the smell was even stronger, clinging around him like a fog and seeping into his every pore. It seemed to lull him into a familiar mindless compliance. Suddenly Axel was so far away, didn't seem to matter anymore, and so what if the story went on, so what if they never got out—it didn't change anything in the long run, really, did it?

* * *

Axel was hallucinating, and that wasn't good. There wasn't a Xion back there when he followed Roxas, or even a damn apple—but then, Roxas had seen them too, and Roxas was gone. Unless the redhead had hallucinated _that_, too, he was fairly certain the rest had been real for a moment. _Definitely a trap. That little idiot…_

It was fine with Axel when Roxas didn't show up in a fic. The kid needed his breaks, too, and it wasn't like they didn't get tired of each other now and again. But Roxas hadn't just dropped out of the fic, he'd been _taken_ somewhere, and Axel generally objected to that practice unless he was the one doing the taking.

Sora and Riku had mysteriously disappeared as well, but they had probably become plot hindrances and gotten dropped. _Messy,_ he thought idly, shaking his head. _You know you've got a bad author on your hands when people just pop off without an explanation._

That said, it was time to find Roxas, and Axel figured the best place to start was everywhere. He conducted a thorough search of every world in the immediate vicinity, moving purposefully but deliberately, and it would have taken several pages if the author hadn't gotten bored and half-assed it (despite the thigh-tingling temptation of working with a very wet, very pissed, very _hot _merman!Axel).

Ultimately, he circled back and found himself in the World That Never Was, exploring a room that he was one hundred percent sure hadn't existed in the castle before now. (Not that anything in the castle actually existed, but that's beside the point.)

"Roxas?" he called, igniting a flame in the darkness. The usual vague, ambient light didn't seem to work here for some reason. He passed something that looked like Xemnas's throne from the final boss battle, only prettier, and grimaced. _Two hundred thousand money says the light goes on and she jumps us right after I find him._

Find him Axel did, curled up in a slightly familiar position in a cage that closely resembled Kairi's, except for the fact that Roxas probably didn't take the mere existence of bars very seriously and so they were properly spaced to contain him. The redhead stopped to rap on one of them with his knuckles. "Sleeping?"

Roxas looked up from where his face was buried in his arms, eyes still foggy with exhaustion. "What took you so long?"

"Tch. Keep saying stuff like that and I'll start melting all your ice cream."

Taking a furtive glance around for the author, more out of habit than anything else, Axel leaned forward and ran a finger down one of the bars, sending enough molten heat through it to bend it sideways into its brothers at a touch. "C'mon."

The blond was just stepping out when the fun finally started. "Thanks for joining us, Axelbabe."

Axel silently congratulated himself on getting his eyes closed before the lights came on, so he was able to turn and adjust without much difficulty. "I'm not one to miss a playdate." He took a moment to indulge the need to shoot a sizzling jade glare at her where she was curled up on the throne in true 'Sue fashion. "Kinda pointless, though, isn't it? We're gonna win no matter what you do."

"You're a villain," she said without interest. "It's of no importance if I have you killed."

"But I still beat you if I die."

She stiffened at that, eyes narrowing, and Axel finally noticed the chain she was holding, surprised he hadn't to begin with. It trailed down off the throne and over the edge of a tiger-striped set of pillows, finally locking onto the collar around the neck of an unusually attractive black-haired boy with eyes like ice shards.

_Just perfect. Enter Gary Stu._

"This is Dirge," Minnie said firmly, as if to correct Axel's unspoken thought. "My latest creation and brand new boytoy. As it happens, he has an eye for blonds."

"Goddammit—!"

But Dirge was already moving, and so was Roxas—in his weakened state, he had no chance of resisting the powerful wrench of the lust. Axel found himself motionless, a script floating dangerously close to his spine. "What do you _want_?!" he demanded finally.

Minnie's eyes were hard. "I told you to fight and defeat me. You failed. You'll suffer the consequences."

"We never had a chance in the _first place_!"

"That's completely irrelevant."

"_Ah_—!"

The sound of Roxas's voice—a lost desperation caught up in a veil of fabricated desire—was enough to shift Axel's attention. Whatever the circumstances, whatever their relationship at the time, Axel _could not bear_ to see his best friend like that. He stiffened, lip curling, and glared at the floor. "Let him go."

"No."

"_Let him go_," Axel repeated, almost in a snarl, "and I'll take his place."

Minnie's ears perked at that, head turning sharply. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Humor me."

"_I will submit to Dirge_. Got it memorized?"

Minnie did, more than Axel realized, and her eyes practically glowed with malicious pleasure. "Willingly?"

"Yes."

"I won't even have to use the lust."

"You got it. Let Roxas go."

"_Delectable_," Minnie practically crooned. "Up, Dirge." But Dirge wasn't really moving, and she turned a raised eyebrow on him. "Dirge?"

The black-haired boy was choking and shaking, ice-blue eyes melting with tears, and he abruptly stiffened, back arching, and collapsed almost on top of Roxas. The Nobody sat up, shoving him aside disgustedly, and shot his best friend a triumphant look. Axel's lips, poised to demand what in the hell had just happened, suddenly turned upward in a smirk.

"Oh, so sorry for that. Were you using him?" came a familiar voice from above, and L charitably waved a hand to guide Minnie's eye to him. He nodded to Light, who was flipping familiarly through the Death Note. "My friend here may have overreacted a little, but to be fair, Dirge _was_ committing a federal crime." He turned reproachful eyes on Light as if to punish him judiciously. "Just so you know, the possibility that you are Kira is rapidly nearing one hundred percent."

Light passed a hand over his eyes. "Ryuuzaki."

"Yes?"

"_Fuck you_."

"Now is not a good time for that, Light."

Minnie seemed incapable of speech for a moment. "You're…supposed to be dead," she managed finally.

"That's usually the case," Light muttered, and then closed the Death Note, drawing himself up with an impatient sigh. "In the event that it has somehow escaped your notice, the one you plucked off me was a fake. If it wasn't, you should have had a Shinigami at your beck and call, but you must have completely forgotten about that little detail."

L nodded sagely. "This happens more often than you'd think, actually, so we've come up with a system of hiding the _real_ Death Note until it becomes necessary." He smiled suddenly, looking innocent and devious at once. "It may not be entirely legitimate, but we're sore losers."

The self-declared villain was standing now, fighting to remain impassive. "So you killed Dirge. I can bring him back. And I can kill you with or without that cursed notebook. So you really haven't gained any ground."

"Mmmm. I disagree," L said almost leisurely, eyes rolling over to where Roxas was standing next to Axel now. "I've taken the liberty of examining the previous chapter top to bottom, and I've found something that will be of assistance." That creepily cute smile returned. "Spoilers."

Minnie stiffened for a moment, but then snorted and waved a dismissive hand. "Spoil away. Nothing's written in stone—I might change something before we even get there."

But Axel had caught on. "He wasn't talking about _this_ story," he said, turning a lazy smirk on Minnie. "You've got another one running. Don't you?"

For a flash of an instant, fear streaked across the self-insert's eyes. "You wouldn't dare."

"Don't try me."

"You _can't_! You can't even _connect me_ to any of the stories you slog through every day! They're all the same, you can't tell the difference!"

"I'll manage," Axel said simply, and frowned, rolling his eyes heavenward as though trying to see back inside his own head.

"_Ah_."

He turned sharply to see that Roxas was grinning—exhausted, but grinning, blue eyes glinting with vengeance. "You can't see it," he said simply. "You're not meant to. But I can."

Minnie's eyes were narrowed, but flickered with uncertainty. "Prove it."

"Fine." Roxas's grin broadened further. "_Sora's_ little guardian angels are starting to come into play, and pretty soon _Ax_—"

"_STOP_!" Minnie screamed suddenly, her voice magnified to blot out anything else Roxas was saying. "Stop right there!" she snarled, suddenly feral and dangerous—an author determined to protect her secrets to the bitter and bloody end. "One more word and I will rip your _fucking_ teeth out."

A tense silence descended over them as they stared one another down—Roxas and Axel at the front lines with fists clenched and secrets frozen on their lips, L and Light in the wings with Death Note open and pen poised, and the author in her 'Sue body standing in front of her 'Sue throne with her mind racing and her eyes almost blood red with murderous intent.

But hers wasn't the only mind racing.

_Rule of thumb. Every character has a weakness,_ Axel thought, eyes flickering to Dirge. _But she's a 'Sue, there's no such thing. Although…a 'Sue is the extension of the author, and usually aspects of that author are reflected…_

Minnie Dianabelle Axelliana the Eighth.

Jade eyes narrowed as Axel's lips curled into a smirk. _Oh, I've got her now._

He caught the others' attention with an overly dramatic sigh, already taking a casual step forward. "Well, this isn't gonna go anywhere, I can see that right now. Cards on the table, let's call it a truce, call it a day, and call a cab home. Got it memorized?" he asked, careful to let his voice throb just so. His eyes were locked on Minnie, suddenly heavy-lidded and unusually direct, and he crooked one pencil-thin eyebrow slightly as he spoke.

Her eyes got very big just then and he could almost hear her heart do a little flip-flop.

Roxas turned to glare at him. "Axel, what're you _d_—?!"

"I agree," L interrupted suddenly. There was a lilt of amusement to his voice, but it was very subtle and Axel probably wouldn't have heard it if he wasn't listening for it. "We've let this go on for too long, and now that we have a foothold, we might as well drop the whole issue and move on to another fic. Don't you agree, Roxas?" he asked with a very slight edge to his voice that meant the answer was _yes_.

But Roxas was at the end of his rope. "No, I _don't_, and this isn't over! We still have to figure out a way to—!"

"Don't mind him," Axel breathed to Minnie, his voice low and sultry—he was very close now, almost moving in for the kill, but if he was too slow she'd shrink back and that wouldn't work. "It's all fine by me. I forgive you." Smooth as silk, he took the last step and was cupping her cheek, looming over her suddenly and moving the other hand for her waist.

It was like he had Midas's touch, if Midas's touch turned people completely red instead of gold. The author went completely rigid under his hand. "A-Ax—I don't—I really—not—I'm _really_ not comfor—comfortable with you t-touching m—!"

She was far too late. Axel's hand had already found her waist and the guideline tethered there, and in a second it had gone up in flames and he was shoving her at the throne. "Welp. There goes your ticket home."

Minnie blinked stupidly at him, still trying to make the transition between _ohgodohgodsoclosesocloseAXELOMG _and _fuckshithellassballsSONOFABITCH_. "Y-you…what…"

"Sorta burned the guideline back to your home in the clouds. Your life begins the sucking process…_now_."

For a moment she just stared at him, still trying to process this, and then she clenched her fingers around the arms of her throne. "_Please_. I'll be right back up there the minute this 'Sue dies. Committing seppuku isn't a problem."

"Well, I don't know. It might be," Light said suddenly, looking up from where he was making a slight change to something in the Death Note. "I don't actually have you down until about twenty-three days from now, will that work for you?"

"Is she allowed to kill herself before then?" L asked, leaning over to look curiously. "I don't remember anything about that in the rules…"

"I'm not sure. It'll be an experiment."

"You're killing me of a sugar overdose?" the detective asked then, fixing Light with a deeply disappointed look. "How…_inspired_."

"I just want to see if it works."

"I doubt it will. I'd really rather get tossed out of a plane again, that was unexpectedly exhilarating."

"Leave it alone and I'll see if I make myself die of laughter like you wanted."

L pecked him on the cheek. "Deal."

Roxas, in the meantime, was waving a hand to try to snap Minnie out of the odd stare she was fixing on them—or rather, the space above their heads. "Hey. You were killing yourself?"

She shifted on the throne, looking unusually limp and blinking owlishly. "I um. I don't feel like it…suddenly. Maybe later."

Axel shrugged. "Suit yourself. We'll let the Protectors of the Plot Continuum know there's a 'Sue in the area, but they're ridiculously understaffed, you know. Might be a little while before they get out here, but you got time."

Minnie made a soft grunt of agreement. "You…" She frowned, clearly trying to get her brain working again. "You…won? You won…huh." Turning her head, she nodded at a flicker of light growing in a corner. "Through there. Not far now."

The Flurry of Dancing Flames was turning on his heel almost before she finished talking. "Later, bitch." He stopped short in front of it with Roxas at his side, the two of them giving a quick salute to L and Light, but the detective and his suspect were embroiled in a thorough examination of the Death Note's rules and didn't look up.

"So what do we do _n_—oh, shit." Roxas stopped as the light faded away and they looked around at the dead black beach. "Shit. She can't be serious."

"Don't panic, you've portalled outta here before," Axel grumbled, holding out a hand—only for a spurt of darkness to pop into existence and then fade long before a portal even formed. "…_Fuck_."

"Yeah."

Axel paced on the beach for a minute, looking listlessly for something he didn't expect to or know how to find. "Maybe it just _ends_ here," he said finally, throwing up his arms.

"We should be moving on."

He glanced over his shoulder at Roxas, who was looking out at the blackened sea, probably for the door to light. _Like it'd ever show up for us,_ Axel thought bitterly, but turned his attention back to the water anyway. "Happily ever after?"

"That's cliché."

The redhead snorted. "It's been clichés the whole way through, Roxas. Another one won't hurt us."

"I just…" He turned again, and this time discovered that Roxas was curling in on himself somewhat, suddenly looking smaller in the shroud of the Organization. "I don't want to do that. We beat the lust…hell, we beat the _author_, and…it…it doesn't feel right to just go with the flow after that."

_What else can we do?_ Axel wanted to ask, but instead he bit his lip and tried to think. "Okay," he said finally. "So…a new ending. Maybe even a new _kind_ of ending. You think?"

"…Yeah. Only…I don't know," Roxas said helplessly, suddenly embarrassed and shrugging. "Maybe we should just kiss and, you know, whatever."

But Axel was too busy watching the place where the door to light should have been showing up, eyes slightly out of focus. "_Don't_ end," he murmured.

"What're you talking about?"

He nodded toward the sky. "There's another idea coming. You see it?"

Roxas looked a little panicked. "I—I—yeah, but—we're not supposed to unless we're between fics!"

"Doesn't matter. It's beautiful, Roxas…" Axel whispered.

The blond was already backing away like it was a cookie containing the human papillomavirus. "What if it's not what we think?" he asked, his voice coming out unusually soft. "What if it turns out bad?"

His best friend shook his head. "Then it turns out bad, but we can't stay here." He rounded on Roxas then, his eyes glowing in the darkness as though illuminated by a light inside. "Listen," he said, moving like a cat and gripping Roxas by the arms with a sudden desperation, as if he was afraid the boy who meant everything to him was going to disappear in the next second. "I love you. I love your sarcasm and your icy glares and your insatiable appetite for sea-salt and your wacky impulses and the way you look at me when you really and truly love me back. I love it that you put up with me and look to me first when something's really wrong and I _absolutely_ love it, Roxas, when you _laugh_. You don't do that enough. And as long as I'm here and as long as you're here and we keep having to do this, I'm going to keep loving those things, so…" His voice was pregnant with tears, and his grip softened into an embrace. "It's okay, Roxas. It really is."

Roxas kept his head bowed, shaking slightly in Axel's arms for several seconds, and then he looked up with a deep sniff. "All right, _you_ listen. I love you, too. I love your stupid hair and your stupid hips and your stupid got it memorized and your stupid _stupidness_. I love how you're always there for me, but you don't skip out on the punching when I need it. And I love that you never, _ever_ abandon me, even when I'm being a total cunt to you. You make me feel special and important and _irreplaceable_, and I…" His voice dropped to a whisper and he suddenly buried his face in Axel's shoulder, hands fisting in his cloak. "I really don't know…where I'd be right now if I didn't…if I didn't have you by my side."

He needed that moment right there, and Axel gave it to him, resting his chin on Roxas's head and unable to resist the contented smile that spread over his face. The story was ending, he could feel it—they could both feel it. Roxas was disappearing, but it didn't matter because Axel was going _with _him this time—because the light consuming them wasn't an end, but a beginning.

"Roxas?"

"Mmmh?"

"Let's go."

Roxas nodded into him and looked up with a faint smile. "Together."

* * *

UR TERN.


End file.
